Doctor Who Infinite Loops
by Bardic Knowledge
Summary: Yggdrasil, the computer that runs the Multiverse, has broken. This has caused chaos and destabilized the very underpinnings of reality. To help keep things stable, the Administrators started activating various realities to start looping through time. One, because of its massive use of time travel was thought unable to activate. They were wrong about that. The Doctor is in.
1. Chapter 1

Doctor Who Infinite Loops

Rules of the Loops:

One person in a Loop, often the main character, is an Anchor. They are the person who first starts to Loop through time.

There is always at least one Anchor present in a given Time Loop snippet, though it may not be the local one.

The standard pattern for a loop is that the Anchor (and whoever else is Looping there) come to awareness in a loop at a particular point in the story. From there, events will play out as influenced by the Loopers present, acting with the benefit of their foreknowledge, until either a predetermined end point is reached or all the Loopers have copped it.

To be Awake is to be aware of the time loops (that is, to have gone back in time _this_ time.)

The Anchor is the only character guaranteed to be Awake. Even after others have started looping, it is mostly random as to whether they will be Awake this particular loop.

Crossovers, fusions, and alternate pasts can also take place. It is perfectly possible, for example, to have the characters Awaken into a loop which conforms to a fanfic universe rather than reality.

Loops do not have to be in chronological order, but it is strongly preferred that they not require a mutually contradictory order (where A must be before B _and_ B must be before A.)

Just about every Looper is very, very stir crazy.

* * *

1.1

The Doctor checked over one of the bits of "junk" in Totter's Lane. Yes, this would be a decent place to stash the Hand, he thought. He had to hurry, though, as Susan would be back from that "school" fancy of hers in a few minutes.

"Message for you, sir!" chirped a voice to his left, causing him to jump for a moment. Looking in that direction, all there was was a single envelope, with the words "To the Doctor, from Zurvan" on it. Mildly suspicious, he poked at it with his cane, then opened it up. He'd never heard of another Time Lord called "Zurvan" before, but that didn't mean it wasn't from someone he just hadn't met yet.

_Dear_

The Doctor stopped reading for a moment. That was his name. Not "Doctor," but his _name_. With renewed trepidation, he continued on.

_As stated on the front of the envelope, I am Zurvan, Administrator of Yggdrasil and in charge of your Branch of the multiverse. There have been a great deal of issues in trying to get your universe online again after The Event, even in the stabilization form of a universe-wide Time Loop that we have managed to administer to other universes. This is in part due to the incredible potential for errors via the time travel you and your race are capable of. What this letter is for is part of an experiment I have gotten one of our top technicians to sign off on: you will have a single Loop through a modified Nesting Doll Protocol as a test that the Jormungandr upgrade to our Ouroboros Patch will prevent catastrophic failure if you accidentally break something in your timeline._

_Part of the reason you have been sent this letter now, and not simply thrown into the experiment is that I trust you can follow the guidelines I lay out for you to minimize damage, while simultaneously taking a better reading of your normal travels. As such, I request that you keep this letter on you at all times, even after you regenerate, so I can use its sensors (yes, there are sensors, but they're placed in a dimension you can't see very well) to keep track of various phenomena. At the start of your first Loop, another version of this letter will be sent to remind you of the guidelines, as you will not be able to carry this one back with you._

_The guidelines are as follows:_

The Doctor briefly scanned the rest of the letter, noting that the "guidelines" were all easy to follow, being such things as "complete stable time loops (for example, don't have a future self save you from something, then not go back and save yourself)" and "try not to use the Key to Time to fix things, it'll just break everything worse." He then noticed the post-script:

_P.S.: Do try to act normally this time around, would you? We wouldn't want to contaminate the experiment by having you do something you wouldn't normally do, now would we?_

"Certainly not," scoffed the Doctor. Grades to the contrary, he was a scientist.

* * *

**Many hundreds of years later...**

The Doctor lay dying. His vision just starting to fade. By his side he could see his companion, laying a hand upon his shoulder.

"Doctor!" the voice said. Ah, his companions. Such wonderful people, all of them. "Please, Doctor! Regenerate!"

"No... Not this time," he wheezed. "I've put this off long enough. It has been wonderful, travelling with all of you, but now it's time I go back." He nodded, with some amusement in his voice. "Yes. I will go back. It will be nice seeing Susan again."

"What do you mean, Doctor?"

He shakily reached into his pocket, fishing out both his latest Sonic and the letter. It was surprisingly still crisp and white, despite having carried it for so long. "I received this... Oh, so long ago. Back when I was a young man, playing at being old." The coughs racked his body. "And now I return to then. As part of a grand experiment. If it doesn't work, however, I want you to use the Sonic to have the TARDIS take you home. Oh, my dear, sweet TARDIS. My most faithful companion. She's been... with me.. for so... long..."

* * *

The Doctor shuddered, almost dropping the bit of "junk" in his hand. Glancing at his hand confirmed the presence of his old class ring, the one he had lost so long ago.

"Message for you, sir!" chirped the voice, just as he was expecting.

Time for a new, old adventure.

It would be so wonderful to see everyone again.

* * *

1.2

Jean-Luc Picard leaned back into his chair. Just another day on the Enterprise-D. It did get a little monotonous at times, but it was home. And then, of course, there were the Loops where he could start making changes, usually because of a Variant, or a minor Fused Loop.

"Captain," Unawake Data shook him out of his reverie.

"Yes, Mister Data?"

"We are picking up an unusual object on the scanners. It appears to be a rectangular prism, only approximately four times larger than the Nomad device encountered by Captain Kirk, with a small cylinder on top."

"On screen." The sight of a blue box bearing the words "Police Public Call Box" was something of an annoyance. Having a Loop suddenly turn out to be Read-Only barely gave the Looping Staff a chance to make sure they hadn't pocketed anything unusual. He'd have to get word to Beverly, Miles, and Geordi somehow. Regardless. "Open hailing frequencies." A chirp signalled his compliance.

"This is Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the U.S.S. Enterprise to the mysterious blue box. Please respond." After a moment without an answer, Picard was set to repeat himself as was standard procedure, when one of the doors opened and a hand pulled a phone out of the sign on the other door and back inside.

"Hello, the TARDIS," said a voice. Then came a slightly muffled, "Did you really have to put the phone back on the outside? I was getting used to it being back in the console!"

"This is Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the-"

"Enterprise!" interrupted the same voice. "Excellent! Hello, Captain! I'm afraid I've been knocked for a Loop and am looking for an Anchor!" Again, muffled, "That was the right phrase, wasn't it?"

Picard had long ago mastered his composure, but if there was any moment he dearly wished to faint, it was now.

* * *

1.3 (OathToOblivion)

Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister of Britain, was a lot of things. One thing she wasn't, however, was someone holding a grudge against the Doctor for deposing her from her elected office. She did, however, expect that he didn't want anything to do with her, so imagine her shock when the familiar *VWORP* of the TARDIS was heard outside her door. She froze in the silence until there was a knock on the door. "Coming!" she called, rushing over to it. She opened the door, revealing the Doctor as she last saw him, with the hair that stood up and a brown, pinstriped suit with overcoat.

"Harriet Jones. May I come in?" he asked almost hesitatingly. A bit unusual for the Doctor, but British manners and all.

"Doctor...yes, of course," she replied, leaving the threshold and letting him walk in.

"I won't be long, Harriet; I just needed to tell you something," the Doctor said, stopping in an effort to choose his words very carefully. He then ventured out. "I...I don't really know where to start," he sighed.

"The beginning is always a good place," Harriet pointed out.

"Heh. Doesn't really matter much to a Time Lord. I met my wife in the opposite direction of time than she met me. Caused me all sorts of headaches when I met her for the first time on my end," he reminisced. He shook his head. "Anyway, that's not the point. The point is I'm...I'm..." he stumbled trying to finish the sentence.

"You're what?" Harriet wondered.

"I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry, Harriet. I never should have done what I did by deposing you," the Time Lord in the room said in sorrow.

"What? But Doctor-" the former Prime Minister attempted to argue back.

"Let me finish, please!" he pleaded. At her silence, he continued. "I still don't approve of your genocide of the Sycorax. But you had a point; humanity does deserve to have the right to protect itself when I'm not around. I'm not so arrogant to think that I'll always be around; not anymore," he explained.

"But if you think that, then why did you do it in the first place?" Harriet couldn't help but ask.

"My people, we have this trick where we can cheat death up to 12 times. In between the first and second times we saw each other, I was forced to use that trick, which is why I look so different. But you know that already." With that summary of regeneration out of the way, he continued on. "But after it happens, while I'm physically fine after a bit, mentally there's a bit of trauma. Everything about me is changed, from my taste buds, to my hair color, to the way my neurons fire. Because I'm not used yet to how the neurons fire differently, I don't always act the way I should. In short, I wasn't really thinking clearly when I did that. Now that I am, I came to apologize. Harriet, if there's anything I can do to make it up to you-" he began to offer.

However, Harriet cut him off. "Doctor, you may think what you did was wrong, but it's the same for me. You're right, I shouldn't have committed genocide the way I did. But I don't regret anything I did that day. You shouldn't either," she said, piercing through him with his gaze.

At this, the Doctor cracked a grin. "'No regret', eh? You humans always continue to surprise me. Regret...I suppose she was right. Even after all this time, like this I'm still 'the Man Who Regrets'," he murmured.

"What?" Harriet asked in confusion.

"Oh, nothing. Just something someone once told me a long long time ago," the Doctor waved the question away. "So! Guess I better get going. Places to see, people to meet! ...See you around, Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland," the Doctor quietly said, turning to leave.

"I know who I am," Harriet wryly said. "Godspeed, Doctor," she saluted him.

"...And the same to you," he murmured, before leaving and shutting the door behind him. The hum of his Sonic Screwdriver was heard as he locked the door behind him.

* * *

1.4 (TrueZero2)

"I don't believe it," Skuld said, looking at Zurvan's screen. "I… you… HOW?!"

"I've got to admit," Themis said, "I thought I had a challenge with the Cooper Gang and their lot, since I've got to deal with a band of thieves for an Anchor and the related Loopers. I thought Hephaestus had pulled of the impossible task with getting the Megaverse stable for Looping, after the hell that went on getting that one going. Then there's _this_. You've probably just won Administrator of the Millennium right there."

"While Skuld's brain reboots itself," Sleipnir added, "Would you mind explaining just what needed to be done to enable this?"

The assortment of Admins that were present nodded in agreement. It was normally a small victory when certain difficult Loops were made Loop-capable. This one though was a whole other story altogether.

On Zurvan's screen was a few lines that conveyed the situation.

Branch: Doctor Who

Anchor: The Doctor (All Incarnations)

Stability: 97%

LOOPING ENABLED

"It wasn't easy, I'll say that much. Any entities that would be classed as Loop-Aware needed to lose some of that awareness. For that, there were a few modifications that needed to be made to the Ouroboros Patch, which I managed to get going with some assistance from Jormungandr. Those mods made it stricter on the system, but to make an analogy, the differences would be like having Diet Cola and Regular Cola. Take the other Time Lords as an actual example here. As a race, they were aware of the Loops, they were able to rather easily deduce that a Time Loop existed. Now, the likely result is that they'll believe that time is distorted to some degree, but that it's something benign, no need to fix it because it'll fix itself eventually. That's what I was aiming for at least," Zurvan began to explain, as he pointed out the various changes to the data that formed the patch in question.

"Then there was the problem with the different versions of the Doctor. I know we'd been bouncing around ideas like 'The Doctor as a Travelling Looper' or the JoJo solution. The main problem with the former was that it left the rest of the branch in the lurch. The latter had the problem of splitting a single individual into around a dozen Anchors. The code just didn't like that one; it dropped concept like a bad habit." This part was accompanied by images depicting the two ideas.

"The idea that I had was awkward, but ultimately simplistic. I've opted to have the Doctor Loop through his own personal timeline, and to leave the start point on a randomiser," Zurvan explained, turning to face everyone.

"A randomiser? What's the point there?" Skuld asked, having regained her composure.

"Well, it'll put him at a random point in his personal timeline. Using the names that the Hub does for each version of him, he'll be able to Loop from his birth prior to the William Hartnell era, all the way through to the end of the Matt Smith era. On the whole though, it'll treat the entire timeline as a single entity and it allowed us to lock-on to him more effectively. If he was to Awaken in his fourth incarnation, every one that comes after would be Awake too. For him, a Loop will last for one Regeneration Cycle, so should he Loop in as any of his first pre-Trenzalore incarnations, then he'll finish at Trenzalore. If he Loops in as one of his second Cycle incarnations, then they'll be ones he has for the Loop. At the moment though, only the first one, the one played by Peter Capaldi in the Hub, is eligible for Awakening. It'll adjust itself should new ones appear in the Hub World."

"His Regeneration presented another problem as it's a racial ability. I dealt with that by locking it to his Gallifreyan data and not him specifically. If he's in a Fused Loop, and he's not from Gallifrey or any variation of, he won't be able to regenerate. Likewise, I've locked the Time Lord species data to prevent Loopers from ending up as one themselves, for the time being at least. I left that part able to be adjusted as we need to. Moving on, it's time for the big one. How to deal with his tech."

At the mere mention of the technology for this Loop, most of the present Admins looked at each other nervously.

"For this, the problem was if he put the stuff into a Subspace Pocket and carried it from one Loop to another," Zurvan said, the screen showing the appropriate images. "Because of that, I've left a number of items as Read-Only, so we won't need to worry too much. Those are mainly the things that enable time-travel."

That alone relieved some of the spectators.

"For the things that aren't Read-Only though, such as Sonic Screwdrivers, I've imposed a limiter on them. They'll simply not work at full capacity or at full reliability whenever they're used outside of the Doctor's home Loop. It'll turn Loopers away from using any of them as the go-to items, and thus, reduce their usage overall. Less usage, less chance of something destabilising the system, and there you have them: the measures that were put in place to allow the Doctor to Loop," he finished.

"Impressive, I've got to say, Zurvan. Well done," Sleipnir replied.

"So, how're we going to break the news to the Loopers?" Themis asked.

"Now that, I really don't know," Zurvan replied. "I say let them find out on their own. We should probably let the Doctor know about that whole regeneration clause though. Professional courtesy and all."

* * *

"Alright, where am I now?"

The Doctor had woken up to a new world entirely, in his younger days as his Time War incarnation. From what he could tell, it was a Fused Loop, given the heads up display showing up in his field of vision. Looking at his Loop memories, he was currently in a virtual world, connected to a game called Elder Tale.

"So, you must be the Doctor," a voice from behind him said. He turned to see a man dressed in white robes, with a staff in one hand, and a book in the other. "I'm the local Anchor. My username is Shiroe. According to my Loop memories, I was helping you to level up before the new expansion sucked us in here. Come with me, we'll get to know each other properly while we make some arrangements for you during your stay in our branch of Yggdrasil."

A little dubious, the Doctor agreed nonetheless. It was a little later that he found a note from the Admins in his inventory that explained what he needed to know about the terms on his Loop.

* * *

1.5 (crossoverpairinglover, edited by OathToOblivion)

The Doctor, currently as the incarnation directly following the Time War (the 9th Doctor), found himself surrounded by a small army of Daleks in the New York Subway Systems (which he had entered because he had heard an interesting rumor about adolescent turtles who lived down here and ate pizza a lot) in an abandoned subway station.

But not just any old group of Daleks was surrounding him this odd Fused Loop.

No, these Daleks had large, metal arms on them that looked good for crushing things.

"Well, this is an...interesting variant," the Doctor muttered to himself as he drew from his Subspace Pocket a lightsaber. He then ignited its blue blade. "So Daleks, any interesting one liners you may or may not wish to shriek out before I exterminate you?" he asked in bravado, pointing the lightsaber at the Daleks.

"...HUG."

The Doctor just stared at the Dalek that spoke in confusion "Wha-?"

"HUG."

The Daleks charged.

* * *

A few Loops later, the Doctor found himself surrounded by Daleks again, this time with large feathers sticking out of their fronts like odd, reverse flamenco dancers. They were in a great valley surrounded by crystal near a town called 'Radiant Garden' or something of the matter.

Drawing his wand from his subspace pocket, he pointed the magical conduit at the nearest Dalek. The end started to glow. "So, Daleks, any interesting one liners before I see what my Patronus actually looks like?"

"...TICKLE."

The Doctor's wand stopped glowing as he stared at the Dalek who just said that. "Wha-?"

"TICKLE."

The Daleks charged...again

* * *

Several dozen loops later, the Doctor, having enjoyed his time in his latest fused loop (Though this 'Providence' group that kept running around catching the E.V.O's was kind of annoying), had went out grocery shopping after hearing about the health benefits of Avocados.

Instead, he found himself surrounded by Daleks while his grocery basket was still empty.

But these Daleks, unlike the regular ones, had giant needles attached to them, like a bunch of blood collecting nurses.

The Doctor sighed. "What do you want this time?"

"...BLOOD."

He cocked an eyebrow at this one.

"THE DA-LEKS MUST FEED ON THE BLOOD OF IN-FE-RI-OR BE-INGS! GIVE US YOUR BLOOD!" The Daleks charged, before realizing that they had missed the Doctor and just punctured themselves with their needles.

Having Apparated out of the way, the Doctor retrieved his basket and went back on his Avocado hunt. "Honestly, I think I prefer you this way," he muttered.

* * *

1.6

The Doctor fingered the gold star in his pocket, given to him by Adric. The first time this happened, he'd killed the Cyberleader, but it damaged the console and he'd failed to save Adric. In his first actual Loop, he'd practically forgotten about that and failed again. It had nagged at him a few times as he started Looping into his later incarnations, mainly his tenth and eleventh, annoyingly enough. But this time, he'd Awoken in Castrovalva and that gave him plenty of time to prepare. He let go of the star and grabbed something else in the deep pockets of his coat.

"You've failed, Leader," he said, just as he had before.

The Cyberleader turned its gun on him. "But you will not enjoy the victory. I shall now kill you, Doctor."

Tegan, bless her brave heart, jumped up behind the Cyberleader, grabbing it and distracting it enough to make it turn around.

"Time to go off-script, I think," the Doctor said, raising the glitter gun he had returned to Voga to borrow. This particular version did far more than cause a Cyberman to suffocate. The Cyberleader turned back just in time to get a jet of molten gold straight to the chest, which gummed up the works enough that it's gun never fired even as it gasped in pain and anguish. He then quickly ran over to the console, tossing the glitter gun to Tegan.

"Please hurry, Doctor. We must get Adric off the freighter," begged Nyssa.

"I'm working on it, Nyssa!"

"We must save Adric! There's so little time"

Distracted by putting the coordinates in, the Doctor again failed to notice a Cyberman enter the room. But Nyssa did see it. "Look out!"

"I won't let him die again!" the Doctor almost growled. He'd had many companions over the centuries, but Adric was the first one he'd truly _lost_. Even those that had accidentally been left behind were still there to be visited. He wouldn't let that happen again.

Nyssa, recognizing the Doctor's focus, though she was confused by his statement, snatched the Cyberleader's gun and opened fire. Tegan, remembering her own armed status, attempted to fire the glitter gun.

However, it had only had enough in it for the shot that took out the Cyberleader.

With a clunk, the TARDIS landed, and the Doctor threw open the doors.

"ADRIC!" He shouted. "PLEASE HURRY!"

The genius of E-Space was startled out of his musings by the Doctor's shout, and seemed torn between answering the question and complying. He was so certain he had the answer. Fortunately for the Doctor, the choice was taken out of both their hands by a lone surviving Cyberman, who fired at the controls for the freighter, destroying it.

Adric raced on board and the Doctor began dematerialization.

As they left for the next adventure, Adric looked out of the viewer and said, "Now I'll never know if I was right."

The Doctor could only laugh and hug him.

* * *

1.7

Variations to the Loop were only slightly more common on the other side of the mirror than in Equestria proper, since most other Loops were populated by humans, so whenever Sunset Looped into "home," she was generally prepared to meet visitors to Canterlot High, especially those who were resistant to attending high school a second time. Teachers were a different matter, since most Loopers had little idea on _how_ to teach. She sat down in her sciences class, already familiar with the subject for the most part.

So the new arrival was only sort of expected.

After everyone was seated, the teacher entered. He was tall, with gray hair and a frilly, almost Victorian-looking, outfit. His skin was peach in tone, which while somewhat normal for a regular human, it tended to stand out amongst the technicolour population of Canterlot High.

"Good afternoon, class," he announced. "I'm your new teacher. My name is Doctor... John- no, that doesn't fit this world does it... Time Turner, yes, that's right. I'd prefer, however, if you just refer to me as Doctor.'" He started writing on the board. "Now, to establish a bit of a baseline, who here is familiar with the concept of a 'Time Loop?' Anyone at all?"

Sunset was the only one to raise her hand.

"Excellent. Miss...?"

"Shimmer, Doctor. Sunset Shimmer."

"Miss Shimmer. I have a special assignment for you, then. Please see me after class. Now then, we'll see how much knowledge we can stuff into your heads by the end of the period, shall we?"

Sunset was certain she heard him mutter, "Hopefully you'll retain more than the Brigadier ever did."

* * *

Time Turner spoke with an unusual accent, which now Sunset realized was similar to British from some human loops, though Sunset realized it could be easily faked with no special Looper skill required. And the famously long scarf was just in one corner on the hat rack, right next to a fez. How she hadn't seen it before was a mystery. In the end Sunset decided to give the benefit of the doubt on Time Turner being the Doctor, as she didn't know enough about him to disprove any evidence he may have with him.

After classes ended both waited until all other students left the class. The teacher spoke first as he approached Sunset Shimmer: "Now, Miss Shimmer, if you would be so kind. Might I ask after the Anchor of this quaint Loop? I haven't had much experience outside my own, you see. Even my first Fused Loop was in my own universe."

No ping and now this… is the Doctor a young looper? It made a weird kind of sense. "Um, okay," still baffled, Sunset did her best to answer. "This is a sort of parallel subset of the Equestrian Loops. Our Anchor is Twilight Sparkle, and she's probably just moving to Ponyville now. I don't know if anyone else is Awake, the ping doesn't work very well through the mirror."

The Doctor nodded.

"Actually… are you the Anchor of your world?" Sunset Shimmer asked in a pensive look.

"Yes, I am indeed the Anchor for my little Branch of the World Tree. Still working on the ping, too. Rather more complicated than you all let on." He tapped his chin. "Perhaps if I reverse the polarity... No, that couldn't possibly work."

"Well, in that case there's no guarantee Twilight's Awake," Sunset continued where she had left. "While multiple Anchors might be Awake in any given loop, only one is required and you'd fill the quota."

"I see."

Seeing the conversation being under control Sunset decided to launch the most complicated question she had. "Look, I don't mean to be rude, but who are you? You can't possibly be who I think you are, but there's no other choice left."

"And as the great Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said, through Sherlock Holmes," the Doctor said back,"'when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.' Though, between you and me, I think he got that phrase from me."

"Only in loops you exist." Sunset sniped back.

The Doctor chuckled "True, true."

Taking a more serious stance Sunset pressed on. "But seriously, isn't your world Read-Only and forbidden to Loop?"

"It was," the Doctor corrected. "You see, my original Administrator enlisted the help of Jörmungandr to upgrade something called an 'Ouroboros Patch.' And, with that, I was activated as a Looper. It is rather annoying to Awaken as a different me all the time, though."

Sunset Shimmer blinked "So it's like Link and Zelda?"

"Who?"

"Loopers from Hyrule." Sunset Shimmer explained. "Their loop has reincarnation built in its life and death cycle so they tend to Awake in whole different eras."

The Doctor smiled wryly, "Somehow I don't think they can regenerate into different bodies and personalities about a dozen times in a single life."

"Point."

The conversation paused at this point and Sunset Shimmer looked outside. "It's night already and everybody left. You said you wanted to meet our Anchor?" At the Doctor's nod she pointed to Canterlot High's front yard, "then let's go the the statue. That's our ticket to meet her."

The Doctor stepped over to a wardrobe in the corner opposite the hat rack. How she missed that one was even more baffling, considering it's blue colour. As he pulled out a light coat, she spotted a hard-to-miss overcoat with enough colours to make a clown jealous. With confirmation that he was the Doctor, she supposed it made some sense that he'd have all his outfits.

After leaving the classroom they walked in silence, leaving enough time for Sunset Shimmer to digest what had happened today. A grin started to creep its way across her face as she realized this had to be the biggest news in the entire Multiverse and she got to hear it first (not actually true, but she could be forgiven for thinking otherwise)! She had to see if the others were Awake. And if so, they needed to know _immediately_.

"If you're just starting to loop, Doctor, I'm guessing you've always been a biped, right?"

"Yes," The Doctor answered back, slightly confused. "Your point being?"

"Travelling through the portal will change your shape." Sunset answered back as she summoned her Keyblade. "You'll probably become a pony just like me, and walking on four legs may be difficult if all your life… lives you've been a biped. Oh, and I'll have to seal the gate behind us. First time I did this, I forgot to do that, and some of the people here followed me through."

"Understood, Miss Shimmer." The Doctor said, apparently fascinated with how Sunset Shimmer summoned her giant key and worked it through the solid marble of the statue. "You know, it's quite the experience being the inexperienced one for a change."

With a shared laugh, both walked through the portal into Equestria.

* * *

1.8

The Doctor tugged at his colourful coat. He didn't see why everyone thought it was "terrible" or "an eyesore." Honestly, it's as if they'd never heard of "being ahead of the curve!" But all that was a bit off topic. "And there you are, Peri! Conflict resolved in record time, with only a few Daleks as casualties."

"I still don't know how you knew this Davros guy was there, Doctor," his companion complained. Honestly, while he didn't mind having someone with him, did she have to be so _blind_?

"Oh, I doubt you would understand," the Doctor retorted.

"Try me."

"The Multiverse is broken and I've been chosen to keep it stable by constantly repeating my life. It's not often one gets to interfere with one's personal history without actually meeting oneself in the process!"

Peri blinked a couple times. "Okay, you were right. I didn't understand. Can't you be clearer?"

The Doctor scoffed. "Clearer? _Clearer? CLEARER?!_ My dear Peri, that's about as clear as one can get when it comes to multi-dimensional errors in the very fabric of reality itself!"

Peri just sighed. "Oh, fine Doctor, I won't ask. But, where are we going next?"

"We, my dear, are going to save a future version of Earth, as well as the whole universe, from a black light explosion. Then, we're going to steer completely clear of Thoros Beta so you don't get your mind switched with one of the Mentors and killed by King Yrcanos."

Peri looked further confused. "Um, thanks?"

"You're welcome, my dear. I wonder what the 'Courtyard' will have to say about things THIS time around!" The Doctor paused in his flipping of switches. "Hmm... I wonder. The Valeyard always claimed he was a dark reflection of my future self, but he's obviously not one of me, now that I've been all of me. I wonder how ol' Zurvan will handle that...?"

Peri had no idea what to say to that.

* * *

1.9

The assembled Time Lords finished watching the events of his revised adventure on the displaced Earth. It was odd, he mused, that they never, in any iteration, pulled any evidence from his past selves, including the time his toothy fourth self was outright _ordered_ by the council to commit genocide on the Daleks.

The Valeyard stood up. "And that was only the _some_ of the meddling the Doctor did in his travels."

"Oh, it was hardly meddling," the Doctor remarked calmly. "All I did was repair a black light converter, shut down a robot tyrant, and stop a robbery while I was at it." The Valeyard glared at the Doctor out of the corner of his eye. It was just so satisfying to infuriate the faker by not rising to the bait, even if it did feel slightly out of character for himself.

The Inquisitor turned to the Doctor, "And do you have any evidence for us, Doctor?"

"As a matter of fact, I do. Even better, I have an excellent character witness who is willing to submit some of his memories to the Matrix for my defense. And don't worry, he _is_ a Time Lord."

As the Inquisitor opened her mouth to reply, the doors to the courtroom swung open, revealing a tall man with disheveled brown hair, wearing a suit and long brown coat. "Hello, everyone! Am I early?"

The Doctor nodded to the newcomer. "You're right on time."

"Just who is this, Doctor?"

"Why, the best character witness one can have, of course! He's a future me! The tenth Doctor, so to speak."

"And he's got a heart of gold, just like the rest of me. Though it is a bit hard to see with that coat." said the older Doctor.

"Excuse me? _My_ coat? _You_ look ready to go fight in a rebellion!"

"Silence!" shouted the Valeyard. "Sagacity, how can we allow this? One should not be allowed to act as his own character witness, especially when his future is still in flux."

"Oh, my future's not the one in danger, Valeyard," replied Ten. "Well, not from you at any rate. Still, I'm not going to be just speaking on my behalf, I'm here to offer memories to the Matrix!"

The Inquisitor looked contemplative. "I believe we shall have a short recess to deliberate on the matter. And if the witness is allowed to submit memories to the Matrix, we will do so in that recess. We will reconvene in one hour."

Everyone but the Doctors and the Valeyard filed out of the room. After everyone left, the Valeyard leaned toward his foes. "You will not win this, Doctor. I swear it." Then he swept out of the courtroom.

"Good. Good," said Six, still leaning back in the defense's chair. "Now, what were you thinking about submitting?"

"I figured I'd put in our adventure with Mister Saxon and the Toclafane. It's half again as long as the evidence the faker's putting forth, but it should suffice to show how we help people."

"Are you sure? I mean, that _is_ during the time we thought Gallifrey was destroyed."

"True. I'll just skip over any mention of the Time War. It only comes up about four or five times."

"They might be a bit suspicious, you know. And with the Master in the Matrix manipulating things..."

"Ah, but he won't have _this_." Ten whipped out a complicated-looking gadget. "Once my memories are in there, I just switch this on and it prevents all in-going signals from reaching the Matrix. 'Course that means you won't be able to pause the video, so be ready to act shocked about that. It'll also pop popcorn, extinguish fires, and create personalized force fields for any living thing in ten meters."

"Do you _ever_ stop adding features to things?"

* * *

1.10 (Detective Ethan Redfield)

The doors to the TARDIS flew open as the elderly first doctor raced for the console with a speed unusual for men his age. Susan was already in the TARDIS, meaning he could take off immediately. The Doctor's granddaughter looked at her relative, who had a ghastly expression on his face. "Grandfather, what's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Oh, just someone I'm supposed to meet...900 or so years in the future, don't worry about it. I'll have us off in a jiffy."

A series of raps echoed into the control room. "Hello, Sweetie! Open up, I just want to talk!"

With a flip of a lever, the TARDIS started grinding only for it to cut out. "Oh Sweetie, you can't leave that quickly, we just met."

Looking at a display, the elderly doctor frowned. "Locking down the Time Circuits using a future sonic screwdriver, clever girl."

The Time Lord reached into his coat, then into his subspace pocket and withdrew the 11th's Screwdriver. Susan asked. "What is that?"

"A Sonic Screwdriver I picked up back at the Academy from Rani," the older man lied.

Susan bought it as she pointed at the door. "And who's that?"

He looked at the TARDIS entrance. "A variant."

Susan blinked. "A what?"

"I'll tell you about it later."

He pointed the green tipped Sonic at the console. "Nice try, River, But you'll have to work harder to kill me than that."

With a push of the button, the Time Circuits unlocked and the grinding resumed.

* * *

1.7 cont.

After the rather disorienting experience of traversing the barrier between worlds unprotected, the Doctor found himself rather awkwardly falling from an upright position into his new body's proper quadrupedal stance.

"Odd," commented Sunset, hovering her Keyblade in her magic as she re-locked the gateway. "I would've thought you'd look a bit... browner."

The Doctor gave himself a once-over. His tail was as grey and curly as his hair (and what an novel experience, having a tail), and his coat retained a peach-pale tone. He kept his suit jacket and frilled shirt, but his light jacket and pants seemed to have vanished. And on his rear was an hourglass, with most of the sand in the top bulb. "And just why is that?"

"Well, we have a pony-slash-person in our Branch called Time Turner who's brown with a spiky mane. He's got the hourglass cutie mark, too." She looked closer at his hourglass. "Though, yours seems to have more sand in the top."

"Sounds like he'd be very similar to my tenth self. You say this image is called a 'cutie mark?'"

"Right, it's supposed to signify a pony's special talent. And, as a Time Lord, yours would obviously be time."

"Quite right. Now, you were going to-" The Doctor paused as he felt an unusual burst of energy pass through him. "My word. Is that what a ping is supposed to feel like?" A moment later, several more bursts of energy were felt.

"Oh, that's right, you haven't quite gotten the hang of pings yet. Here, let me give you some tips..."

After Sunset explained the ping to the Doctor, Sunset said, "Hang on, Doctor. This is going to be a wild ride!" Using the Force to grab the Doctor, Sunset cast the Rey Wing spell she learned from Lina Inverse to take flight.

"How exhilarating!" The Doctor had rarely flown without a craft of some sort, the closest he'd ever come being the time he borrowed the power of the Archangel Network to hover for a bit in his tenth incarnation.

Sunset chuckled in reply. "I've picked up a few tricks in my time as a Looper." Soon enough, Sunset landed near Ponyville. Taking the time to grab a newspaper, she noticed it was a few weeks after the 1000th Summer Sun Celebration. "It's a bit later than I thought. Still, this works just fine."

The Doctor straightened his suit jacket. "My word, Miss Shimmer. What was that just now? Some form of telekinesis?"

"One was the Force, from the Star Wars universe. It's a bit easier to carry people that way than using my personal magic sometimes. The other was a spell called 'Rey Wing.' Speaking of, if you ever have a Fused Loop with Lina Inverse, be careful. She tends to cause mass destruction."

The Doctor cocked an eyebrow, curious. "And why does she cause mass destruction?"

"Well, the first time she Awakens to a new Fused Loop, she casts her signature spell to make sure it works. Said signature spell can flatten small villages. Other than that it's often incidental damage from fighting."

"My word. I hope I don't run into her any time soon." The Doctor looked around the quaint village of Ponyville. "Now then, you were going to show me to your Anchor."

"She lives over there, in the house-tree-library." The Doctor wasn't quite sure what to make of that, but he had seen some very odd things in his time.

As the two trotted toward the library, Sunset gave the Doctor some tips on several of the Loops she had been to.

"Now, one of the Original Seven, Ranma, has a rather interesting home Loop. It's so focused on various martial arts, that it started making some up, like Martial Arts Tea Ceremony-" Suddenly, Sunset saw a certain pink party pony out of the corner of her eye, shaking like mad. She held up a hand to the Doctor as she paused.

Smirking, Sunset said to the Doctor, "Follow my lead. I just thought of something that'll make your big debut as a Looper more fitting for you. After all, you're the one person everyone thought would never Awaken." The Doctor cocked his eyebrow in a specific manner, Delphon for "you're the expert here."

Sunset, loudly, asked the Doctor, "So, feeling a little Loopy?"

Doing his best to guess where she was going with this, the Doctor replied, "Yes, but now I feel quite Awake. For the first time, so to speak." Pinkie looked at the Doctor, curiously.

"So, you're a Doctor, right? What's your specialty?"

_Ah,_ he thought, _this other pony must be Awake as well._ Out loud, he replied, "Well, anything, everything. Time in particular."

Pinkie stared at the two of them for a long moment, blinking, before shrugging and continuing on her merry way.

"Well, that's not the reaction I was expecting," remarked Sunset.

"What do you mean?"

"I thought for sure she'd zip off, raring to get a party together for you." Sunset shook her head. "She's acting odd, even for herself."

"Hmm. Well, regardless, you were going to introduce me to your Anchor, Miss Shimmer."

* * *

Once they were out of view of pretty much anypony, but still quite a ways from the library, Sunset paused. "Doctor. There's something that's been nagging at me for a while now, but it's difficult to talk about with people from here. We're all so very forgiving, after all."

The Doctor looked at her, puzzled, "Nothing wrong with a bit of forgiveness. But, why are you asking me? There must be more experienced Loopers out there who can advise you."

"I know, but there's something about you. I think it has to do with all the experience your baseline alone gives you."

Sunset took a deep breath. "Anyways, in our baseline... I go a little insane. I stole Twilight's crown, the Element of Magic, one of Equestria's most powerful artifacts, and intended to use it to invade Equestria and take it over with an army of mind-controlled teenagers." Sunset looked at the ground, haunted by her baseline memories.

"And I take it you're worried about potentially backsliding, is that it?"

"In a way. You see, Equestria is ruled over by Alicorns, a pony made of all the pony tribes. And almost all the Looping Equestrians are or can become them at will. I'm worried that if my time to ascend to Alicorn ever comes, that I'll wind up going mad with power again. Especially since I'm told emotions run a little hotter when someone ascends."

The Doctor nodded in understanding. Fortunately, he had a few examples he could pull from. "I see. Tell me, my dear, do you know of my Warrior incarnation?"

"I've heard of it, yeah."

"He did many terrible things in the Time War. Enough to feel that he should renounce the very name of 'Doctor.'" It was difficult to think of that era in his life. The Time War had been so long and so brutal, that by the end of it he had practically forgotten his true age and just reset the age he gave to around eight hundred and something.

The haunted look faded somewhat as he looked into her eyes. "I have since learned that there are many ways of being a Doctor. However, it is still very difficult to forgive that part of myself for what he did – and what he intended to do. It's the same for what my tenth incarnation did when he tried to break a Fixed Point, calling himself 'the Time Lord Victorious.'"

The Doctor paused. "What I'm getting at, Miss Shimer... Sunset, is that even if you do something terrible, if you learn from it and use its lesson to be better, you have nothing to fear from that part of you."

Sunset stood in silence for a minute. "Thank you. I'm still not sure I'm ready to be an Alicorn. But if it happens, I'll try not to fear myself."

The Doctor patted her on the shoulder. "That's all anyone can do with themselves. Shall we continue?"

Sunset shook herself. "Right."

* * *

"Well, Doctor, this is it," said Sunset, as they stood in front of the library.

"No need to stand around, I think." And with that, the Doctor pulled open the door, inwardly marvelling at the dexterity of his hooves.

"Hello," greeted Twilight. "Oh, Sunset! We don't usually see you around now. What's up?"

"We have a new Looper," grinned Sunset, gesturing to the Doctor.

"Good afternoon, Miss Sparkle. I'm the Doctor."

"Nice try, but I don't think so."

The Doctor gave her an incredulous look. "I beg your pardon?"

"He sounds like one of the Doctor, but that's easy to replicate. I'm surprised you thought this would work, Sunset."

"Now see here-" The Doctor restrained himself from yelling angrily at the unicorn. "What must I do to prove to you who I am?"

"Time travel."

"The TARDIS didn't follow me over. And even if she had, there's no artron energy in your universe, so she wouldn't be able to move."

"Sonic Screwdriver."

"Is there anything in here [i]not[/i] made of wood?"

"Regenerate?"

"Aside from wanting to remain myself, I'm not currently Gallifreyan and therefore cannot."

Sunset looked between the two as they continued their verbal tennis match. Every time Twilight asked something of the Doctor, he'd give a good reason he couldn't do it or an answer that Twilight would dismiss as "common knowledge" about the Doctor's adventures. After several minutes of this, Sunset and the Doctor found themselves outside the library.

"Of all the nerve," grumbled the Doctor. "I have half a mind to-"

"Please, Doctor, let's just try someone else, okay? Rarity lives closest, we can see if she's Awake."

As it turns out, she was. However, while she complimented the Doctor on his current outfit, she didn't believe them either. Nor did Fluttershy or Rainbow Dash. And with each failure, the Doctor became angrier and angrier.

"Millions of Loops under your collective belts and not one of them seems to think I could possibly be who I say I am?! The absolute nerve!"

"There's still a few ponies left to try, Doctor. We've only met half the pings out there. Going by the trend, I'm sure Applejack must be Awake, and she's the Element of Honesty. She [i]has[/i] to believe us."

* * *

"I don't believe it."

The pair stared incredulously.

"That does it!" The Doctor shouted. "I-"

"No, that ain't what I meant," interrupted Applejack. "I can feel the truth in what yer sayin'. He's really the Doctor. I was just so shocked I could scarcely believe my own senses."

"I knew we could rely on you, AJ," sighed a relieved Sunset. "Every other Element wouldn't believe us at all. They thought we were pranking them."

"Now, I could be a mite offended that ya didn't come ta me first, but I know I'm a bit out of the way compared to everypony other than Fluttershy."

"Do you think you could help us tell everyone else?"

"Well, first we should go meet up with Apple Bloom. She's going to be so ecstatic to meet ya Doctor. She's been working on her own Sonic Screwdriver, y'see. After that, we'll hope that nopony thinks ya managed to rope me inta a prank."

"Won't she have met me when I was unAwake?" asked the Doctor.

"I'm not actually sure. The only time I've heard of her meetin' a version of ya was when we were replacing all of ya'll."

"My word, replacing all of me? How did that work?"

"Well, Princess Celestia was in the place o' yer first self..."

* * *

1.11 (Detective Ethan Redfield)

The door swung open, issuing forth Donna Noble, followed closely by the 10th Doctor. They stood on the edge of a vast mountain, overlooking a vast burnt out wasteland leading to the sea. Donna looked to the Doctor with her head tilted. "The view is quite lovely, but I thought you said you would show me something I've never seen before?"

The Doctor gave his patented smile. "Indeed I did. Now, look down in the valley below, just before the ocean. Do you see anything?"

Donna peered to where he indicated, "I see...something. It's large and white...but, I'm not sure what it is."

The Doctor issued her back into the TARDIS and flipped a few levers. "Now, let's get a lot closer. You're gonna love this."

As the grinding ended, the door opened again, only for Donna's mouth to drop. "Oh...My...God...is that-"

The Doctor chuckled. "Yes, yes it is. The eighth wonder of the world, or soon will be anyway."

In front of them was the legendary 13 foot chickens of the Valley of Pompeii. Of course, the Doctor couldn't bear to tell her it was one of his more foolish plans. That Malon girl seemed so nice too, loaning him an egg just for this purpose and making them to reproduce asexually while putting a stasis spell on said egg. What she failed to mention was their ability to resist attacks that could ordinarily could bring down buildings and, if irritated too much, would summon an entire swarm from nowhere to kill the attacker. And then there was-

The doctor was jostled out of his thoughts. "Uh, Donna, don't stand in front of one of them...ever. They have a tendency to randomly shoot flames from their beaks."

Donna looked at him skeptically before light erupted behind her. She turned in time to see a gout of flame echo from one of the bird's mouth. The Doctor scratched his forehead. "Yeah, before these creatures lived here, the valley was quite fertile. What caused this is a complete mystery."

He stepped back into the TARDIS and issued Donna to join him. "Yeah, it's about time to set off the volcano. Surely you don't think the Romans took time to randomly carve statues of chickens in the valley, do you?"

Donna shrugged. "Why not? They have statues to the chicken god, Scootaloo, alongside the statue of Sleipnir in the temple of Yggdrasil."

She failed to notice the doctor's double take before he caught himself, muttering. "You got to be kidding me."

With that, the Doctor made silent plans to visit Ancient Rome and see about getting a second companion as he prepared to set off a volcano that would erase his slight miscalculation. At the very least, he did manage to prevent Pompeii from being destroyed...by making the area uninhabitable, but it was a small price to pay to save so many lives.

* * *

1.1: How not to break a universe.

1.2: When the impossible happens to you.

1.3: Regeneration Trauma takes many forms.

1.4: The Admins are just as shocked as we are.

1.5: Davros never has a sense of humour. He is, however, a little odd sometimes.

1.6: Saving those lost before.

1.7: Doctor Whooves has arrived. (Slight edit to the second part, due to conflicts from the MLP Thread end of things)

1.8: Even when he's Looping, Six is loud.

1.9: Advance warning can do wonders for your case.

1.10: River was trained to kill the Doctor. This time they never specified which one.

1.11: Malon of the LonLon Ranch has some curious breeds of Cucco.


	2. Chapter 2

2.1

The Doctor looked up as Miss Hartigan's Cyberking towered over London. He looked over to Jackson Lake and grinned.

"I've been waiting a while for this, you know."

Jackson just looked at him in bafflement. "You have? Why?"

"Because my last Fused Loop had giant robots too. And my pocket had finally gotten big enough to keep one in."

When retrieving pocketed items, most Loopers reached behind their back or simply let the item they needed (and maybe a few they didn't) appear in their hand. The Doctor liked to use his actual cloth pockets, to give the illusion of being even bigger on the inside than they really were. And so his temporary companion was treated to the sight of a hundred foot tall humanoid machine get pulled out of a four-inch square coat pocket.

The Doctor was surprised to find that time didn't quite snap back to normal after that event, as it had in the original timeline. He had apparently impressed the people of London so much that it changed the course of human technology towards the creation of robotics a few decades early. This created a few ripples through his timeline, including the lovely sight of Daleks getting crushed like tin cans in the grips of giants.

There was a slight issue of the occasional robot uprising, but he was somehow always there to calm things down again.

* * *

2.2

It had been a year since Tegan Jovanka had left the Doctor, running from the terror and carnage that had followed him. She never really regretted the decision to leave then, though she did occasionally miss the safer trips, like their time on the Eye of Orion. So it came to some surprise when she heard the distinctive sound of the TARDIS materializing. She didn't have to look far to find out where, as a strangely colourful room appeared around her, replacing the living room she had been sitting in.

"Tegan Jovanka," said a voice. "It's been a long time. Longer for me than you, but then that's to be expected sometimes, eh?"

Tegan was only mildly confused at the bow-tie and tweed wearing man before her. "You've regenerated again?"

"A few times, yes. I was wondering, would you like to go on an adventure again? Don't worry, this one is purely for the fun of it. I know almost everything that's going to happen in it."

Tegan thought it over. "You're absolutely sure?"

"Cross my hearts," the Doctor replied, drawing "x"s over his hearts with his fingers. He then started running around the console, much more active than her Doctor- either of them. "There might be a little danger, because of dinosaurs, but the only one who should die is the bad guy. He committed genocide, so he kinda deserves it."

Tegan paled slightly. "But why are you asking me?"

"Well, I was thinking I didn't really have a gang before this adventure, until I remembered I did once. You, me, Nyssa, Turlough. We were a bit of a gang, weren't we?"

Tegan smiled at the thought of Nyssa, one of her dearest friends. "A bit. Is that who we're going to pick up next?"

"Nyssa, yes. We should arrive not long after she's finished completely curing Lazar's Disease. Turlough, I don't know. We are, however, going to pick up the Ponds, my companions for this regeneration."

"If they're your companions, why aren't they here already?"

"They have a life outside the TARDIS. Have for a while. Also, they had some rougher times than you, plus it can be a bit "eugh" to watch them make out. Rory's been dead a few times. Coming back every time gave him a bit of a reputation as a certified badass, too." With a clunk, the TARDIS finished materializing. "Well, shall we pick up Nyssa, then?"

Tegan stood up from her living room's easy chair. "I'll get her. It'll be good to see her again."

A short trip later and the Ponds (plus Brian Williams) were on board as well.

"Rory, Amy, Brian, I'd like you to meet Tegan and Nyssa. They used to travel with me. I hope you get along with them. Sarah Jane certainly got along well enough with Rose."

Amy looked at the Doctor askance. "Do you always travel with girls, Doctor? Young, pretty ones?"

"No, not always. There have been plenty of men along. Jamie McCrimmon, Vislor Turlough, Ian Chesterton - always had fun messing up his name, Captain Jack Harkness." The Doctor hesitated. He had only just Awoken while crashing into Amy's back yard this Loop. "Adric." Tegan and Nyssa looked at each other and shared a fond thought of the otherwise insufferable genius.

"So, what are we doing today, Doctor?" asked Rory.

"Very special treat. Dinosaurs on a spaceship. Wanted to have a gang for this adventure, so I got half the old gang to meet with half the new gang."

"Half? Is there someone else you're travelling with when you're not with us?" asked Amy.

"Nah. Baseline I have Queen Nefertiti and Riddell as the other half of the gang. This time, I thought I'd bring in some dear old friends instead. Maybe next Loop I'll mix things up a different way. Might even try to pick up companions out of order. That ought to make things interesting." Everyone not the Doctor shared a confused glance. Especially Brian, who still hadn't gotten an explanation for where he was.

* * *

2.3 (Detective Ethan Redfield)

The Eleventh Doctor rubbed his hands together with Amy and Rory standing behind him as his mouth formed a mischievous grin. "Question, do you want to see the most dangerous creature in the entire multiverse?"

Amy nodded. "Sounds like fun!"

Rory seemed more skeptical. "Is that wise, Doctor? I mean, why would you actively take us into a Dalek stronghold?"

The Doctor chuckled. "No, no, no, no, no. The Daleks are easy to fool. No, this creature has collapsed an entire universe."

Rory raised his hands to protest, only for the Doctor to twist a knob on the control panel and lift a lever. The TARDIS started vibrating violently. Amy slipped and tumbled to the ground. "Should it be doing that?"

Eleven fiddled with several more buttons and knobs. "No problem! We have to head back in time 2000 years ago, then forward to bypass the Dwarf Star Alloy. Everything is perfectly fine!"

Rory managed to get his protest out. "Doctor, I don't think this is such a good idea."

"Not to worry, you have nothing to fear as long as I'm around."

With those reassuring words, the TARDIS came to rest. The Doctor raced to the door and turned to face Rory and Amy, who stopped mid-stride in surprise. The Time Lord's excited demeanor turned serious. "Now, Amy, you especially, must never, ever under any circumstances agree to do anything he says. If he asks for a contract, refuse immediately. Nothing good ever came from his contracts. He can teleport across the universe if he escapes this prison. I spent an entire regeneration to catch this creature and seal it up. Do...you...understand?"

Amy nodded, her eyes wide. She had never seen the Doctor this serious before. In the face of Daleks he laughed as he easily outmaneuvered them and seemed bored when being locked up in the Pandorica. She wouldn't let him down. With her clearly understanding the severity of the situation, the Doctor seemed jovial again, "Right, as I always say, Geronimo."

With that, he pushed the door open to what could only be described as a kitten-like creature. "Hello, Doctor. Come to free me?"

The Doctor's smile disappeared immediately. Amy looked the creature over with a disbelieving stare, "Is...this the creature that caused an entire universe to be destroyed?"

The creature's eyes shifted from the Doctor to her. "Hello, do you want to become a magical girl?"

The Doctor said with a small growl, "Hello, Kyubey. Madoka sends her regards."

Kyubey suddenly disappeared, only to reappear, smashed against what seemed to be an invisible wall. The Doctor's frown shifted for the slightest moments into a smirk, "You're not getting out through my TARDIS. It's shielded against creatures that can distort the fabric of reality."

Dazed, Kyubey didn't notice the Doctor go on to describe the creature in a low tone of voice, filtering out anything related to the time loops, "Kyubey is an alien from another dimension. He contracts typically with young girls or women at their weakest moment, offering them a wish, any wish, in exchange for them becoming magical girls to fight witches that pop up throughout the universe. What he fails to mention is being a magical girl is unstable. Should the magic girl fall into despair, her essence would become corrupted, turning her into the witch she ultimately fights. One girl wished to become a god, and the wish was more than her universe could take. It collapsed, now only existing in the form of a bow, the one with arrows, not the one on her head."

He turned to exit the prison in his TARDIS and spoke with authority. "Let that be a lesson, Pond. Even the most harmless creatures can end up destroying entire universes. Now, to somewhere more exciting. How about a trip to a delightful town called Mercy in the Old West?"

With that, the TARDIS doors closed behind Rory and Amy's backs, leaving Kyubey trapped within his prison.

* * *

2.4 (crossoverpairinglover)

It wasn't the first time in the loops Ahsoka Tano had decided to go out with the younglings again on their crystal hunt, and it probably wouldn't be the last.

Ahsoka, one of only two non human, organic life forms looping in her verse at the moment (the other being Chewbacca), had over time found several events of her baseline she could avoid if she did the right things.

If she used her foreknowledge to its fullest effect, she would always manage to break the blockade of Ryloth in the first try, making things all the better for the Republic and the Twi'Leks alike.

If she did not stop Awake Anakin from flying off on his own and causing mass amounts of damage on Zygerria with one of his giant robots, the Separatist attack on Kiros did not occur, the colonists did not end up being captured by slavers, and she did not have to dress up as a slave girl.

If she talked to Barriss in just the right way, she did not go crazy, and Ahsoka did not have to go on the run from Tarkin and the Jedi Order.

It was easy to not be the one taking the younglings out hunting for force crystals. She just had to say no, and in fact she did so several times in the start. However, in her earliest loops she made bad calls and viewed things the wrong way.

This resulted in her displaying Sakura Syndrome, and a lot of things she would rather not discuss occurred, among which was the origin of Anakin's feud with the Joestar loopers.

She had, of course, recovered from that long ago, and stayed that way in part because of loops like this one.

Being able to see the joy in children's happiness, so simple and unclouded by hate and violence, did her heart good after many loops dealing with monsters such as Palpatine, Ragyo and Ghetsis.

It was refreshing, at least when Anakin was anchoring reality. The time that a different anchor was around...well she had to think about how to remove said younglings from the temple at the end of the clone wars if she was not able to get Palpatine away from Anakin, which was easier said than done.

Of course, the chilly part of the job was over. The Younglings had collected their crystals, and now they were going to visit Huyang, the droid who was responsible for constructing light sabers who bore a striking resemblance to the Tenth Doctor in more ways that one.

The Doctor...

Ahsoka and Anakin had met him a couple of times in various incarnations, and found him likeable. It wasn't that easy to find a non looper who matched them in eccentricities, after all.

It was sad he wasn't a looper though. It was always hard to end up feeling like he was a friend, then have to do it all over again the next fused loop. At least if she continued to work on being Barris's friend, she could eventually start looping.

Though not anytime soon, the current bets on who would be the next looper was generally set for either Padme, Yoda, Rex or Bail Organa. Though Han did put a decent bet on Fives while C-3PO had the oddest belief that Corran Horn would start looping for some reason Ahsoka could not fathom.

"...Place your crystals on the table, your lesson begins now", Ahsoka began with a big smile on her face as the younglings did as she asked equally eagerly. "Allow me to introduce..."

Turning around to properly introduce Huyang, she stopped mid sentence, as what stepped out was not the robot she was expecting.

"Oh, hello there. I don't think I introduced myself, I am The Doctor, master maker of Light Sabers, and I just recently woke up and found myself in a loop to find this place again after I got a little lost." Somehow, it was the 10th Doctor who she found on this ship "I do believe we haven't properly met yet."

Ahsoka subtly pinched herself to make sure she was not hallucinating this.

* * *

"A Wookie!"

Still in shock, Ahsoka watched the Doctor, the Freakin, not supposed to be looping, Doctor, lecture her personal little tribe of younglings slash minions when it suited her in that eccentric way of his.

"You know, I always was fond of Wookies. So few of your kind are Jedi, yet the few who are are brilliant paragrims of good and justice. Why, I feel as if a Jedi without a wookie friend is hardly a Jedi at all."

Meanwhile, the anchor of the Prequel branch sneezed before he resumed his watch for his wife's 408th assassination attempt this year.

"Er..."

Noting the human Petro trying to not be rude, yet also wanting him to hurry up, the Doctor got back on track.

"Oh yes, the lightsaber." Using the Force, the Doctor drew their lightsaber crystals to him and had them begin to orbit around him like moons.

"From the battles of Bellatrix and Trenzalore to peacekeeping after the Babel Crisis, the lightsaber is a Jedi's greatest weapon and his one true ally bar The Force itself." The Doctor began the speech Ahsoka had heard Huyang a hundred thousand times, though spiced with his own experiences (and apparently Federation history, he had apparently run into Starfleet already) "The lightsaber is a weapon known far and wide, beyond even the Jedi themselves, but how do they work you may ask? What makes them so special, as opposed to something everyone has? You may have the crystals, but they still need to be given life."

With the force, he returned the crystals to the spellbound younglings, as he began walking towards the holo projector

"You see my eager younglings, you must awaken the Force within your crystals. Now, as I am pretty sure none of you have a clue about how this is done, I will show you. There are few questions after all, that I cannot answer, and here is one thing I can, how to build a lightsaber"

With that, the Doctor activated a hologram showing diagrams to build a powerful hand held weapon. "I'm sure you can follow..."

He absently noticed Ahsoka looking at him in some level of annoyance "Oh, is there a problem, Miss Tano?"

"Master...those are the wrong plans," she deadpanned, causing the Doctor to scratch his head.

"Wrong plans, what do you-?" The Doctor turned and realized the hologram he set up was in fact not that of a lightsaber, but a sonic screwdriver.

"Oh...my bad." The plans quickly changed to those of an actual lightsaber. "Please take no note of what you just saw."

"But..."

"You didn't see anything."

* * *

"So, I take it you know me already?"

While the little kids worked, and failed, at building lightsabers with the force (without even looking Ahsoka had corrected Petro at least 4 times before he took his own eye out or set off an explosion), the two loopers found themselves in the corner, the sound of their conversation muffled by a Muffliato charm to discuss looping things where small, inquisitive younglings could not hear.

"Yes" Ahsoka quietly told him "We met you several times...Anakin and me, just me, me and Anakin and R2...you've met most of us at least once. Not sure if you met Revan..."

The Doctor lightly frowned. "Not sure if I could tell you if I had." The Doctor gave Ahsoka an even look. "Were we friends?"

"Friends..." Ahsoka sounded a bit startled at this, but quickly composed herself. "Yes, by the end of our loops there we always were friends of yours. We were friends, allies and mutually despised enemies of the Daleks together, many times over."

The Doctor lightly chuckled at the last one. "I'd hate to find someone looping who wouldn't be despised enemies of the Daleks. I do have one thing to ask of you," he trailed off as Ahsoka's eyes went wide.

The Doctor extended his hand to her with a large grin. "I hope to be friends with you are for real now that I am properly looping."

After a moment's shock, Ahsoka extended her own hand, affirming her own desire to see that happen.

"Splendid," the Doctor grinned. "So,what happens now? Do I just get to watch the Rugrats this loop before being left alone with a bunch of lightsaber parts for years on end again?"

Ahsoka frowned at the last one, not exactly sure why that was the case, but she did have an answer for him.

"Well, Hondo's pirates are going to attack soon, so we should be ready for them before they rob us blind and..."

"Pirates?! That sounds fun!" The Doctor seemed a bit too interested in meeting alien pirates in Ahsoka's opinion. "Oh, I do hope they are non-humanoid ones!"

Before Ahsoka could ask him exactly what he meant by that, an explosion shook the ship.

* * *

"Oh, an alien pirate on a flying saucer. I could have sworn it would have been more imaginative looking," The Doctor commented to Hondo's invading Weequayan pirates. Behind him, Ahsoka facepalmed in immense irritation. "You really just look like humans in suits...which a lot of aliens do for some reason, have you ever noticed that?"

Really, they just looked like humans with leathery skin, no lips and some bony frill things.

It wasn't even just here, he noticed the same thing when he was over with the Federation, and his own 'verse for that matter, where many species resembled humans or humans in suits.

Hondo just stared at this Jedi's odd remarks, before he turned his gaze to Ahsoka and asked, in complete seriousness, "You there, Skywalker's Pada-whatsit! Did I just board a Jedi cruiser filled with Khyber Crystal, or did I just board a Jedi cruiser filled with your crazies?"

Ahsoka, idly checking to make sure the Younglings were behind her, ignited her lightsabers in response. "Why don't you come over and find out?"

Hondo laughed at that. "You Jedi are so weird. But my men have taken down Sith Lords, what do two Jedi and a bunch of Younglings think they can do against a crew of Pirates?"

The Doctor's response was to simply wave his hand in front of them, with a face that was actually curious to see exactly how this would work. "Why don't you go leave this place and go bother someone else?"

Hondo laughed. "Oh ho ho! The Jedi Mind Trick? Silly clearly-off-in-the-head Jedi, I'm not so weak as to allow that to affect me. Now, men, let us plunder this ship of its riches..." he stopped talking as he noticed that the rest of his men had in fact left.

Hondo promptly sighed. "Damn. Why can't you get good, obedient minions who can't be messed up by your Jedi hocus pocus? Well, apparently I have to go rob someone else, have fun with your war."

Hondo promptly ran for his life after his mind altered men.

The Doctor grinned as his gaze returned to Ahsoka, who just shook her head.

"This, younglings, is why only droids should be left on ships alone for extended periods of time," she snarked, though she knew his...eccentricities were not caused by that alone.

Force help her when she thought of the question of what he'd be like in a few thousand more loops.

* * *

2.5 (novusordomundi)

Cthulhu leaned back into his chair with a smile that could only be compared to the feline devouring a avian. When the Doctor Who loops had finally been started, a lot of processing power that had originally been needed was now freed up for other uses in fixing the multiverse. Even the Admins probably didn't know how much. Which made it easy to divert a little of it for themselves.

Of course, one could not take too much, or Hephaestus might notice. But enough to power a few projects he had in mind, plus a couple of things for Yog-Sothoth to create things in. There was even enough power to make a new playground for the Thousand Young. (Glitch-proof, of course. Zero Day kept going through swings like nothing.)

Cthulhu stood out of his chair and went to grab his coat. He didn't dare risk spreading the news on Soggoth-Chan (the Admins DID keep track of it), and that meant going in person. But hey, he needed to meet with some of them anyways to discuss the day's events. And besides, a computer was a lousy friend to have at a pub anyways...

* * *

2.6 (Scorntex)

That Dalek.

That Dalek.

That. Bloody. Dalek.

Looping hadn't really changed the Doctor's opinion about Daleks, on the whole. Oh, Daleks Caan and Sec were usually alright (-ish), but those two were two examples spread across a two-thousand year long lifetime.

But the Doctor really, really hated That Dalek.

He was pretty sure it wasn't the same Dalek, not every time, which was why it'd gained the capital letter.

Because every time, every single Loop, during the Reality Bomb incident, That Dalek shot him.

Didn't matter where he was. London, Boston, Germany, New York, Shanghai, St. Petersburg, Glasgow, even in the middle of nowhere Utah, there was a Dalek waiting for him and Rose.

And it always hit him, no matter how hard he tried to avoid it. And Jack always arrived just a few seconds too late.

One Loop he'd even brought along Jack's Sonic Blaster, to see if that would work. He'd aimed, pulled the trigger... and the battery had made a sad little noise and fallen out. He was still impressed at how quickly he'd managed to roll out of the way of the first blast. The second one had grazed his leg.

And the worst part was that he'd been doing so well this Loop, too. He'd not ruined Harriet Jones's career, meaning the Master's take-over of Great Britain hadn't happened the same way, and Martha's family hadn't been traumatised. He'd managed to get Reinette on-board the TARDIS, which had almost worked, despite Rose's repeated objections, though she'd left a while before he met Martha. He'd avoided getting possessed by that sun, or arrested for unpaid parking tickets. He'd managed to save most of the crew of the Titanic this time. He'd even avoided being banished by Queen Victoria (though Torchwood had still been founded, only they'd been like a corporate version of LINDA. He still had nightmares about that one). And he'd even managed to save Jenny from Cobb.

Of course, he'd had to show off his sword-fighting skills this time, meaning there wasn't going to be a handy spare hand waiting inside Sexy.

He woke up as Jack and Rose finished dragging him inside the TARDIS.

"He's dying," he heard Jack say, "and you know what happens next."

He stood up. Jenny and Donna just looked confused and terrified. Jack looked mostly calm, and Rose... well, Rose was looking like Rose.

"Will someone please tell me what's going on?" Donna demanded. He felt it coming, tried to fight it back just for old time's sake. But it was coming. That chin was coming.

"It's too late," he managed to get out, eventually. "I'-"

He promptly exploded in a blaze of golden light.

'Oh, that's not fair!' he thought to himself. 'You can't cut me off mid-sentence!'

And he'd really wanted to keep this face for more than five years, just once.

He was going to kill That Dalek next time.

The light dimmed, the pain stopped, and he turned to look at the completely blank looks on everyone's faces. He looked down at his hands, which were still the same manly hairy hands they were before.

"Um..." The Doctor declared, caught more than a little bit flat-footed. "Okay. Am I-?"

"Yeah," Jack said. The still-the-Tenth Doctor paused a second to take that in.

There was a strange feeling in his pocket, as something fell out of it. He quickly checked, and found a small letter.

_For: The Doctor._

_Might have forgot to mention this, but your regenerations remain constant in the Loops._

_Meaning your eleventh and twelfth incarnations keep the same face."_

_Zurvan._

The Doctor stared at the note for several minutes, ignoring the TARDIS lights turning off, and the feeling of being pulled up by the Dalek's beams.

"Well, that would've been nice to know before I let the Sycorax chop my hand off... over a dozen times..."

* * *

2.7 (OathToOblivion)

Ash Woke Up just as he was about to go into Professor Oak's lab to pick up his first Pokemon. Sending out a ping, he immediately got two back from inside the Lab, as well as one from the general direction of the Orange Islands. As the one from the Islands was no doubt Tracey, he decided to focus on the ones from the Lab. One obviously had to be Pikachu, but that there was another was only moderately surprising. 'I guess that means Professor Oak is Awake,' he thought to himself, walking in.

As he did so, he couldn't help but notice a few strange changes. For one thing, it was a bit more ornate than he remembered it being. For sure, Professor Oak was the world's leading Pokemon expert, but that didn't really translate into money. Besides which, the Professor liked living humbly, and spent most of his money on the Ranch to expand the habitats for the Pokemon who lived there, as well as the lab equipment.

There were also an almost disturbing number of clocks all over the place. Either the Professor was doing something time-related (Had he Awoken in the past during the thing with Celebi?) or somebody had replaced him. Truthfully, Ash was betting on the latter. 'Probably Doc Brown again, what with all the clocks,' he thought as he walked in.

The person he saw was decidedly not Emmett Brown though. No, he was a fair bit shorter than him. He was wearing plaid pants, a white jacket and hat, and a sweater with an almost absurd amount of question marks on it.

"Well, you're definitely not Professor Oak," Ash commented as the other noted his appearance.

"No, I'm not. This is an interesting Loop though. And my Loop memories have revealed something interesting. This is the Pokemon Loop, isn't it? Are you the Anchor?" he asked in an accent Ash recognized as Hub-standard Scottish.

"Well, it's one of them. And no, I'm not the Anchor. He's in there," Ash said, motioning to the machine that kept the Pokeballs for the Starter Pokemon.

"Ah, the fourth Pokemon I had ready. Very well then," the other said, going to open it. As he tried to remember how to do so, Ash decided to say something.

"So who are you anyway? I've never seen you around," he noted in curiosity.

"Oh, I'm a fairly new Looper. My Loop just activated, with me as its Anchor," the other said.

Ash grinned. "Always nice to meet someone new. I'm Ash Ketchum," he introduced.

"Well met, Ash. As for myself, my name is a bit of a secret. I'd give you my usual alias, but I've actually been called Professor before, so you can just keep referring to me as that," the Professor offered.

"Alright. So, Professor, what's your Loop like?" Ash asked.

"Oh, pretty standard compared to most Loops. I go about righting wrongs, and traveling around. I've been called a bit of a chessmaster in the past, and quite frankly, I understand why. I have a bit of a knack for manipulating people," the Professor said, opening the center that contained Pikachu's (hated) Pokeball.

Ash raised a brow. "Isn't it a bad idea to tell me that then?" he wondered.

"On the contrary, the best manipulators can be known as such and still get people to do what they want. It's best you watch out for those types, Ash," the Professor advised, handing over Pikachu's Pokeball.

Ash immediately opened it...and got shocked as Pikachu came out. As he fell to the floor, he couldn't help but ask, "Why do you keep doing that, Pikachu?"

"Tradition," Pikachu replied. "I got the Ping, is the Professor Awake?" he wondered, turning around to find the other Looper in the room. Upon noticing him, he immediately went deadpan. "Ash, why is the Doctor standing right there where I got the other Ping?" he questioned.

"Because he's the visiting Looper?" Ash said rhetorically, getting off the floor and putting his hat back on. "I guess that's your normal alias then?" he asked.

"Yes. I understand you've met me before, Pikachu?" the Doctor asked in clarification.

"Yeah, it was a while ago, and the Daleks were trying to use some Tentacruel to...Hey! Don't change the subject! How can you be Looping?! You've got more time travel trouble in your Loop than 500 Dialgas!" Pikachu exclaimed.

"Well, obviously, it was patched. Zurvan, my Admin, received some rather generous help from Jormungandr and managed to get my Loop off Read-Only," the Doctor said.

"I don't believe this. Twilight said that you were Looping last time she was here, but I thought she was just trying to prank me," Pikachu muttered.

"It was a shock to me as well when I found out about the Loops. Even more so when I started. Still, I think it's been a pretty interesting experience. It's refreshing, being the inexperienced one. Makes me almost feel young again," the Doctor reminisced.

"Anyway, what are you going to do this Loop, Doctor?" Ash asked.

"Well, I consider myself a bit of a polyglot-" he started, before Ash interrupted.

"A what?" he asked in confusion.

"Someone who can speak a lot of languages. We're polyglots, Ash," Pikachu pointed out.

"Oh."

"Anyway, as I was saying, I was hoping to take this Loop to, while I'm not doing my in-Loop job, learn the Pokemon language," the Doctor summarized.

"Don't look at us, we're not sticking around for long," Pikachu stated.

Ash had a better idea though. "I got a ping from the Orange Islands that was probably Tracey. He's Professor Oak's lab assistant. I can ask him to come over here," he offered.

"Stupid Pokeball…" Pikachu grumbled. Pokeballs in some variants tended to muffle far-off Pings, and it looked like this is one of them.

"I would be very appreciative if you would," the Doctor graciously said.

Ash grinned. "Don't mention it."

* * *

2.8 (Blazingen1, edited by OathToOblivion)

"Well, this is strange. No one's glaring at me. Guess it's not a baseline Loop then."

A young Uzumaki Naruto, Anchor of the Narutoverse, walked down his usual path towards the Hokage Building.

"Nope, there's some glares, but no real actions there. Earlier, I was not overcharged for buying my breakfast, no one threw me out of their stores and no parents pulled their children away. All I could find out from them with my negative emotion sensing, is that they all fear someone, just simply not me. Whoever did this to them must have them really scared if they're fully willing to abide by the rules."

It was then that he looked down at his stomach, where the seal was. "And a certain someone isn't really being as chatty as normal," he commented.

"I'm catching up on my sleep. Last Loop was in Ichigo's Loop, remember? You pretty much spammed Bankai the entire time, so guess who had to pick up the slack?" Kurama grumbled, before curling up in a ball and returning to sleep. Naruto rolled his eyes, but decided to leave him alone for now.

Now Naruto, as one of the Original Seven, has had many normal baseline loops and variant loops. He can easily tell the difference between them.

It seemed like a baseline loop, because no one had hurt him yet or do anything other than ignore him. Yet, Naruto still felt that something was amiss. 'Maybe someone's been replaced. I sent out a ping earlier, and the response came from the Hokage Office.'

As he walked past a shopkeeper, he overheard the conversation that two men were having.

"Whatever you do, do not treat that boy with nothing less than respect. If you don't, who knows what might happen to you. We've all been warned by the former civilian council."

"Why would I respect that-?"

"SSSHHHH! Don't you dare call him that. Ever. Don't you remember what the Hokage did to those who beat him? He was simmering with anger, yet he never raised his voice. That was the scariest thing. He didn't shout, he didn't command, he just asked the offenders to stop. When they didn't, he mercilessly beat them bloody, healed them, and then beat them over and over again. Anyone who has caused any kind of harm to him, mentally or physically, it's said that the Hokage will make you feel it ten times worse. As expected of the man feared as the War Doctor."

Naruto's eyebrows shot above his hairline. Alright then, definitely not a baseline loop. Also, the only War Doctor he knows is from the Doctor Who loops. But that's not possible, unless…

* * *

Upon entering the office, everyone there stopped for a moment, took a bow, and then continued from where they stopped.

Still puzzled, he walked up to the third floor, and entered the Hokage's office.

"Hey! Old man, have you been feeling loopy today?"

"Oh yes, I Awoke earlier feeling just a bit dizzy, that's all."

The person sitting on the chair was in fact not the usual figure of Sarutobi Hiruzen, but that of the man he fought side by side as they protected the Elemental Nations from the threat of the Daleks. It was the freakin' War Doctor.

He swept his hand and commanded the ANBU to stand guard outside, then, in a series of hand-signs, sealed the room totally. Naruto, feeling like he should contribute, took out two seal tags and flung them at opposite sides of the wall. The seal tags activated and large black characters surrounded the room.

"There. Now we should be safe to talk," they both said simultaneously.

"So you're the guy who pinged in earlier. I've been through over countless loops, but I haven't been this surprised since…I forget. But I definitely haven't been this surprised in a very long time-ttebayo."

"Oh, so you do recognize me. Well then, do you recognize this then?" He took out a pen-like device and pushed a button, making it emit a high frequency sound. There was also a red light on top.

"That's a sonic screwdriver. How'd you get your hands on that? It shouldn't be possible, unless…"

"That's right; my universe has just started Looping too. Allow me to introduce myself," he said as he stood up and put his hands behind his back. "I am the Doctor. Are you the Anchor?"

Nodding, the Doctor continued, "Now, as to how I can Loop, well, I'll be brief because I heard from the staff that you have a tiny attention span in your current body."

Naruto just pouted at that comment.

"Basically, I can loop due to a modification to the Ouroboros Patch with the help of Jormungandr, making other loop aware beings in my universe outright ignore the Loops. They know they're happening, but they just don't care enough to fix it and allow the Loops to fix themselves. Some items like Vortex Manipulators and my dear TARDIS were made Read-Only, with some others made to function at limited capacity, like my Sonic Screwdriver."

He took out his sonic and pressed the button. The red light was noticeably much dimmer. Pocketing the device, he continued, "Finally, I can Awaken as any of my regenerations at any point in a single Regeneration Cycle, preventing any Doctor prior to the Awakening from being Awake. Should I loop into another world in that regeneration, then if I am not at the very least some analogue of Gallifreyan, I will stay in that form until the loop ends."

"I see," Naruto said as he tried to understand what was just told to him. "By the way, I heard what you did with the offenders."

"Yes, well, apparently I heard from others that baseline Sarutobi lacked a bit of backbone. Not only did he fail to properly quell the anger of the citizens by providing a proper explanation of the sealing of Kurama, he failed his successor by failing to provide more for you. He lacked the courage to stand up to the cruel and corrupt civilian council. He didn't even tell you what happened to your parents in fear of you outright hating him. At least, that was what this variant's loop memories tell me."

Naruto really couldn't counter that, as much as he wanted to defend his grandfather figure. He knew both variant and baseline versions of Old Man Hokage had made plenty of mistakes in the past, notwithstanding himself and everyone around him.

"So, once I found out I looped into your world, I decided to formally punished those involved. Trust me, neither the civilian council nor Danzo could ever bother us for the rest of the Loop.

Naruto felt something drop in his belly. Nervously he asked, "What exactly did you do to them?"

"They were greedy people. These politicians would most definitely not stop trying to usurp power from me. So I took their power instead. When they protested, I made them fear me."

_There were angry outbursts coming from all the civilian council members. He didn't respond to any of them. All he heard was the squabbling of angry, selfish children. It was only when he ordered one of the ANBU members to pick up one member of the civilian council and send him to Ibiki that the hall became deathly quiet._

_"You all seem to be forgetting where your positions lie." It was obvious the Doctor was angry. "You civil servants are meant to serve the people, not yourselves. Mataoki Hideo, the man I just sent away, has been pillaging the village finances just so he could fill his already full cup of riches. The man to the right over there was the main instigator of the Naruto Lynch Mob, and I know everyone here has tried overtaking their positions, haven't they? Everyone here has crimes that they have committed, and I have all the evidence. You children really don't know who you're talking to do you?"_

_To the civilian council, he was scarier than any Tailed Beast. He didn't even release any killing intent, he never raised his voice, and yet he was so scary that one even peed his pants._

_He continued speaking in that same tone. "I give you two options. One is that you leave this village. Your family will be safe, I will assure it. You may only take food, water and some money with you. You will be given seals placed on your necks that will induce death upon attempting to reveal secrets of the village."_

_Now they were really scared. "The second, well, why don't I show you."_

_ANBU appeared before the terrified civilians, and whisked them off in a shunshin to Ibiki's torture room._

_"It's alright; I can take it from here." He walked into the room. The captured civilians could only watch in horror at what happened to their fellow mate, as they were all pulled in to see a realistic genjutsu of him being pulled into a black hole, not that they knew what it is. The screams made the watchers pale.  
_

"Soon, rumors of what happened spread, and then after that, no one tried to kill you anymore, nor did they decide to break anymore laws. I convinced them, that I am scarier than any bijuu that they may see. With that, people started giving you a chance, before finally realizing that they had made a very big mistake by making biased opinions of you. Some of the smarter ones has realized the connection between you and your father soon after, but they understood why you must be kept hidden lest your enemies find out who you really are. That's how I did it."

"And Danzo?"

The Doctor stood still for a bit before answering. "Unlike the civilians that still could be saved from their own greed, that man is completely irredeemable. I won't go into details, because it still spooks even me. To be brief, I gave him total sensory deprivation. All his soldiers and his recruits were sent to the Yamanakas for mental treatment. I destroyed all the implanted eyes, his good arm, made him deaf, blind and dumb. He no longer has proper nerves to feel, move, use chakra, or any of the six senses. He's totally isolated in a room where no one will ever find him. Ever."

Naruto couldn't really help but to gulp. The 'Fury of the Time Lord', no normal person would want to see that.

"Speaking with experience, the price for peace, in this world at least, is certainly a hard target to achieve, isn't it?"

Naruto could only look back at the multiple loops he had attempted to make everlasting peace in his universe. It was more tolling than any other attempts in some other worlds. The true Naruto, the old man who has lived longer than anyone should, could only sigh and nod in agreement.

"Well, now that the gloomy part is over, could you help me with all this paperwork? I heard from the others you have a secret way of defeating it."

Naruto could only chuckle, put his hands up onto his head and say, "Shadow Clones."

The Doctor widened his eyes before smacking his hands over his temple. "Four Hundred loops and I have already forgotten what they told me."

Full out laughing, Naruto reached out his hands and said, "Welcome to the Naruto loops, Doctor Who!"

"That's not my real name," said an annoyed but smiling Doctor, as they shook hands.

* * *

2.9 (Scorntex)

It was an interesting Loop he found himself in now. One where mankind had apparently left Earth at some point, as they were so fond of doing, and wound up finding a great big system to live in, and fight over, and get into trouble over. He'd woken up in a spaceport, travelling around looking for somewhere to be, looking for the local Loopers. Then he'd met that nice young lady with the bright smile, the one who'd said very confidently he was going to end up on "her" ship.

And while he wasn't sure it had been the safest idea, the local Loopers, who lived on said ship, had certainly been inviting, in their own way, their apparent familiarity with him notwithstanding. He decided not to ask them about that one. And he couldn't really fault them for the thefts, given his own murky history of borrowing without permission.

Which is why he'd been unable to argue against joining them on their current caper.

It had been easy enough, use the psychic paper to fake a way into a heavily guarded hospital to take medical supplies that his fellow Loopers needed. The young doctor, and he was going to reluctantly admit the young man was definitely clever given the plan had been his, had warned him that there was a good chance that their unAwake crewmember was likely going to betray them for money, and the situation was going to get worse from there.

They were betrayed and arrested, and his new friend's non-Looping sister had begun mumbling something. And she was frightened.

The Doctor, presently stuck looking like his Tenth incarnation, looked over towards the young man at the other end of the bench (which wasn't easy with a clearly nervous gorilla of a man sitting between them).

"Is she-?" he asked. There was a look of fear on the young doctor's face he did not like.

"She gets like this, when there's danger coming. Sometimes," Simon Tam's eyes darted towards the edgy looking gorilla in their midst, "sometimes it's like she knows what's about to happen."

"Ain't no such gorram thing," Jayne growled.

"Then why's she so worried?" The Doctor asked. Suddenly the girl stopped shaking, and mumbling, and stared straight at the Doctor, or more accurately at the pocket where he was keeping his screwdriver.

Any further conversation was interrupted by their being dragged onto their feet and marched away into another room. The Doctor looked toward Simon, who just looked exceedingly calm.

A few minutes later, and with a handy application of some Venusian aikido, followed by a brief bout of sonicing, they were free. Only River was mumbling again.

"Didn't need no help from you," Jayne growled, cradling the gun he'd stolen from one of the guards, as he began walking towards the door they'd come through.

"Not that way," Simon said. Jayne turned to look at him, looking irritated and annoyed.

"There are going to be more of them coming," he said, glancing toward the Doctor again. He wished they'd explained exactly what it was they were so afraid of. They'd explained only in the briefest terms that "bad people" were coming, even when Jayne wasn't around. Which meant they either didn't know, or didn't want to talk about it. And all the admittedly headstrong Captain Reynolds had said was not to ask.

So naturally the Doctor was growing increasingly curious.

"I kin take 'em" Jayne said, "only eight of 'em."

"Gun's broken," The Doctor noted. Jayne stared at him, the Doctor nodded at the gun.

"Landed pretty hard when its last owner fell down. You'll probably get one shot, maybe two. Might actually be easier to use it as a club, if you can't get close enough."

"Know a lot 'bout guns for a man of learning" Jayne grunted. The Doctor shifted.

"Well," he sighed, "had a lot of them pointed at me."

There was a sudden, loud horrible scream. It was River, who was clutching her head. Simon grabbed her. "We have to go, now!"

River was muttering something to herself. Jayne looked at the door, then to River, then to the gun. He muttered something foul under his breath and started running. The Tams and the Doctor followed suit.

"So," the Doctor asked, once he was certain Jayne was just far enough ahead not to be listening. "What's after us?"

Simon glanced back briefly. "Men."

The Doctor tried not to pout in disappointment. "Men? Is that it?"

"They have something," Simon said. "I don't know what, but it causes a lot of screaming. They'll kill those soldiers just for seeing River, and follow after us."

"So we run?" The Doctor said. Simon nodded, to which he grinned. "Well, you go on and run then. Nice and healthy, fresh air and exercise, I'll just..." he stopped. "Be a minute."

"They'll kill you," Simon said, emphatically.

"Oh," the Doctor shrugged, "I'll be fine. Really. I do this all the time."

"Regeneration is still disabled outside home-Loop," River murmured. Simon gave the Doctor a meaningful glance.

"Don't worry," he said, "I've got a lot of experience in not-dying."

Simon paused, looking over toward the stairs, and heading the sound of Jayne trying to smash his way through the door at the bottom.

"Have you got a weapon?" he asked. The Doctor grinned.

"My brain, my mouth and my screwdriver. Three deadliest things in the world."

"Failed basic theoretical engineering," River murmured, "Destroyed spare manual."

"Only a bit," the Doctor said reflexively, before catching himself. "Anyway, more escaping." Before Simon could add anything else, he lifted out his screwdriver and pointed it at the door. There was a brief pause before they heard Jayne inform them that the door was open. Simon looked at the Doctor intently for a moment, before shaking his head and hurrying down the stairs with River.

The Doctor turned, and marched backwards, trying to ignore the screaming that he could still hear. He walked back into the room and waited. Shortly after the screaming stopped, two men calmly entered the corridor. Both of them were dressed immaculately, and their hands were covered with what looked like gloves. They stared at him dispassionately, as if they were calculating whether he needed killing or not.

The Doctor paused, wondering if some of the local language was beginning to rub off on him.

"Okay," he declared, "Guessing from the posh suits and total lack of concern, I'm guessing government. Because if you've got something you want hidden you send two people to murder everyone involved, very subtle. You could teach Torchwood a thing or two."

The two men just kept staring. Slowly, one started to reach into his pocket. The Doctor quickly drew out his screwdriver.

"Don't," was all he said. The arm quickly fell to the side.

One of the men blinked for a moment, their eyes focused entirely on the screwdriver. "What... what is that?"

"I'm thinking it's the girl. You're after her. Government experimenting, that would explain why you-"

The man's arm hurried back to the pocket. He withdrew a small something, and it began to make a noise. From the look of it, tiny and bright blue and innocuous, the Doctor decided not to take his chances, especially with the odd sound it was beginning to make. There was a small spark as the screwdriver did its work, and the remains of the object dropped to the floor.

"Sonic weaponry," he said, trying not to let his rising anger show. "Horrible way to kill someone. Not very subtle, though. But then I'm armed with a screwdriver, what do I know about subtle?"

The two men turned to look at one another. In an instant, their hands rushed to another pocket, drawing guns this time. The Doctor pressed again, the guns also sparked and dropped to the floor. Now the men in suits were glowering at him. In fairness, he had broken what looked like some very expensive guns.

As they approached, he shifted slightly, readying himself to run at a moment's notice.

Instead, the two men suddenly found themselves being riddled with gunfire, and dropped to the floor. The Doctor whipped around to see a content-looking Mal Reynolds and Zoe Washburn walking into the room holding guns.

"That never gets old" Mal said, walking past the outraged Doctor and over to the remains of the men. He kicked one of them, before turning to look at the Doctor.

"Yeah, Zoe and me usually deal with these two early on, Doctor. The replacement's a lot easier to deal with."

A dark look briefly crossed Mal's face. "Usually."

"But," the Doctor sputtered, "you-"

"These men were gonna try their level best to kill you, me and mine, Doctor," Mal said calmly. "And while you and I may have our differences, you are on my crew for this Loop. Now, c'mon, we gotta get going."

The Doctor nodded, staring at the two men lying prone, before glowering at the backs of Mal and Zoe. Gritting his teeth, he followed after them.

* * *

2.10

The Doctor sat hunched over the bar, not saying a word to anyone. The patrons were somewhat used to mopers, but one in particular knew him, and knew this wasn't normal behavior for his friend.

"Doctor."

There was no reply.

"Doctor, it's me, Jack. You look horrible."

"It never works," he slurred slightly. "No matter what I do, it doesn't change."

"Well doesn't that sound ominous. C'mon, tell your old buddy Jack Harkness what's wrong."

"I'm looping through my lifetime. I've done so much, helped so many I failed before. Susan, Adric, Traken, Peri, Rose, Jenny... But not her. Every time, even when I've managed to not lose my hand, something makes me lose Donna."

"Donna? Donna Noble? But I thought she was back home after we beat Davros."

"Oh, this time she is. I played it out the same as the first time because even if she can't remember, at least she's alive. I've tried so much. So many different ways, but they've all failed. Reverse Chameleon Arch, modified Lazarus Project, but always she's lost."

Jack wasn't sure what to say. He couldn't claim to be an expert on the Doctor, but he had known him in two lives, and had met a few others in his incredibly long life. And he'd never seen any like this.

"You know what she calls me?" the Doctor said rhetorically. "'The One Who Regrets.' The rest of my lives have other titles. 'The Young One,' 'The One Who Plans,' 'The One Who Shouts.' But all I do is regret."

"What about what Rose did to me? Make her immortal, too."

"Didn't work. She just kept burning up and coming back only to burn again. I couldn't let her stay in that torturous state, so I crashed the Loop. Eiken was almost a paradise compared to her screams." The Doctor slammed back his drink and signalled for another. "I'm sorry, Donna. I'm so, so sorry."

And all Jack could do was sit down and give the Doctor, who had always seemed so strong, so powerful, a shoulder to cry on.

* * *

2.11

"Grandfather? Is everything alright?"

The Doctor glanced up at Susan. It was rare for him to Awaken this early, not that he really changed much before going to Totter's Lane to meet Barbara and Chesterton again. "Yes. Yes, my dear. I'm just rather lost in thought." He looked at the rows of Time Capsules, all Type 40, and mused on how much of an understatement that was. While he felt it most strongly during his tenth incarnation, the crushing loneliness of repeating the same stretch of two thousand years over and over with no one to share it with was starting to get to him. "Now, then. I believe we were going to take this one, hmm?"

And as he stepped towards the doors of she-who-would-be-Sexy (he barely paid any attention to the "Great Intelligence"'s attempts to waylay him anymore), he heard her voice. Clara's voice.

"Doctor? Is that you?"

Wait. That's not what she was supposed to say. He looked back, and saw her, every inch a Time Lady to his senses, looking at him incredibly confused.

"I only ask, because the last thing I remember is being in the TARDIS and you, a new you, complaining about the colour of your kidneys."

Susan looked incredibly confused. "Grandfather? Who is this? And what's she talking about?"

Joy blossomed in the young Doctor's old heart. "An old friend, child. One I am very glad to see. Clara, my dear, this is my granddaughter Susan." The Doctor giggled cheerily. "Would you like to come with us? Hm? We have so much to talk about! Oh, And I'll explain everything to you, as well, Susan."

The other Loopers had said there would be a Loop like this.

He was so glad they were right.

* * *

2.1 There are some opportunities that can only happen in the Loops.

2.2 Meeting with old friends

2.3 Kyubey can be delayed quite easily. The hard part is catching it.

2.4 Cosmetic similarities can lead to interesting encounters.

2.5 The Cthulhu Mythos is well integrated with the Expanded Whoniverse

2.6 Multiversal constants

2.7 Now, are you a boy or a girl?

2.8 If you thought Ten's punishments in The Family of Blood were bad...

2.9 Ten's always had a bit of an issue with guns

2.10 Another title held by the Doctor (Ten, at least): The Lonely God

2.11 Not so lonely anymore


	3. Chapter 3

3.1

Lucca sighed as she put the last connections of the Telepod into place. It was odd, this strange time loop she had found herself in. At first she thought it was some sort of revenge from Lavos, or something those strange Mystics did to her, but when the time for the two to attack her orphanage came again, she was ready for them and found herself continuing past that point until Dalton used Porre's sudden army to attack Guardia and take it over.

Life as a refugee wasn't fun any of the times she did it. Getting killed, of course, made everything worse by sending her back to today. At least the kids did alright for themselves, forming a rebellion group called "Radical Dreamers" and fighting guerrilla warfare. She was somewhat surprised with how talented Kid was at thievery, however. Maybe they could visit the El Nido Archipelago together sometime, instead of Kid running off on her own.

Eventually she started taking advantage of the Loop, learning as much about 2300 technology as she could. She could now safely say that she could easily advance technology a thousand years without any problems.

Once the final wire was plugged in, her dad went to alert the fair staff that they were ready. He had been mildly surprised to find her ability to put the Telepod together so quickly, but just chalked it up to enthusiasm (despite all her sighing).

Immediately, two guests arrived, but she recognized neither of them. This was important to note because she had long since memorized the faces of the crowd that gathered at the Telepod exhibit. Since they were unfamiliar, she decided to go speak with them.

"Hello, I'm Lucca."

The man, who wore a green coat and ruffles and had shoulder-length wavy brown hair, held out his hand, which Lucca shook. "How do you do, I'm the Doctor." He gestured to his companion, a short woman with black hair and a red dress. "This is Clara." Clara waved. "I must admit I find myself rather curious. This Telepod technology, what does it do?"

"Dad will explain when the exhibit itself happens, but in a nutshell, it's a point-to-point transportation system."

"Fascinating. You know, when we saw all those swords and things, I thought we were in a far more medieval period. But to have dematerialization and rematerialization with such limited tools, it's a credit to your genius." The Doctor then went over to the console and started looking it over carefully.

"Don't mind him," said Clara. "He's good with machines. Well, mostly. The TARDIS gives him trouble sometimes. She still gives me trouble sometimes, and I've been learning as much as I can about her just in case."

"TARDIS?" Lucca asked. This was starting to get strange.

"Time And Relative Dimension In Space," answered the Doctor. "Speaking of, I notice that there's a weakening in the fabric of time in this area. You might want to be careful, as an overload in the demat circuits could cause a rupture."

Lucca just stared in shock for a few moments. "Time and... space? Who are you? Do you know why time is repeating for me?"

"See, Clara? I knew that someone would react."

"Yeah, yeah. Next time I Loop with this incarnation of you I'll pay for our shoe shopping trip."

"Now, I'm afraid this is going to take a while to explain, so shall we find someplace nearby to sit?"

* * *

3.2

The Doctor Awoke to find himself in the curious state of not having a body. But before he could contemplate the situation, he became aware of the words "activate the EMH," and found himself standing in the med-bay of what appeared to be a Federation starship (in all his Fused Loops, he'd yet to find anything that looked quite like them).

"Please state the nature of the medical emergency," he automatically recited. "Oh, yes, I see. I haven't been a medical doctor for some time."

"Doctor?" asked the person in front of him. She wore the red and black of twenty-fourth century command staff and had short, brown hair. On her breast was a communicator that had three bars behind Starfleet's crest. Hmm. Must be the Voyager. "You aren't the Doctor we usually get."

"Yes, I hear that rather often. If you'd prefer, you can refer to me as Doktor von Wer."

"Isn't that German for 'Doctor Who?'"

"Well, yes, but at least it's not the usual 'John Smith' thing my future selves tend to give out. Tell me, have you seen my recorder anywhere?"

"I'm afraid not, Doctor. As for me, I am Kathryn Janeway, Captain of Voyager. Just to be on the safe side, you _can_ perform as a medical doctor?"

"In the baseline, barely. But I have managed to learn quite a few things, and the programming of this 'EMH' business can help with that. Now, if I remember from my encounter with Captain Picard, your ship is the one that was lost in the Gamma Quadrant?"

"Delta Quadrant actually, but yes."

"Should be exciting," said the Doctor, shaking Janeway's hand excitedly. "Now, what's our first stop?"

* * *

3.3 (Scorntex)

Hogwarts. He was finally in Hogwarts. Ever since he'd read the books, so long ago, he'd wanted to see it. And yet, in another sense, he hadn't. Something about the school, with its Houses and horrible teachers and bullying brought back several painful and unpleasant memories he'd tried constantly to bury.

But there was another part of him that really wanted to see a phoenix, and thestrals, and to meet one of the original Loopers, and to get a good look at the way that world's magic worked.

And the train, because even with all the time-travel he rarely got a chance to use trains.

But there was the one everyone seemed to speak of. Dolores Jane Umbridge. A horrible, nasty and as utterly vile woman as there was disguising herself in the thinnest veneer of sugary sweetness. Indeed, the first day he'd met the local Anchor (and goodness, he actually had the scar), he'd been warned about her.

Curiosity piqued, he wanted to meet this woman.

But he'd looped in on the first year. Meaning he was going to have to wait.

* * *

In all honesty, Harry Potter thought, he was surprised the Loop had gotten as far as it had.

It had started four years ago. There they'd been, standing in line outside the great hall. Neville had lost his toad, and Malfoy had been Malfoy about it.

Then an absolute giant of a first year student had stepped in. There had been something about that giant mass of curly hair that set Harry's brain off, or the smile that made its owner look like he was about to go for someone's throat. And there was the way he'd talked so loudly. Harry had a sinking feeling the moment he'd seen that.

Then, during the sorting, Professor McGonagall had actually stopped while reading out the list, before announcing "Doctor of TARDIS." Harry counted himself lucky he hadn't been drinking or eating anything at the time, as the giant curly-haired boy had practically bounded over to the chair, still grinning like a maniac.

He'd been under the hat for several minutes before it'd declared him for Gryffindor.

That had been four years ago. Four long years with the Doctor. And not just any Doctor. The Fourth one.

However, and he wasn't necessarily going to complain about it, but watching Snape drop to the floor the minute he'd tried to read the Doctor's mind had been a highlight of the first year.

And watching the Doctor verbally trounce Lockhart, not to mention swanning into Professor Dumbledore's office carrying a sword, Ginny and the remains of a book that Harry could quickly recognise as Tom's diary, grinning madly while smelling insanely bad. When asked how he found it, he'd just smiled even further and said he "spoke snake".

Harry was used to visiting Loopers doing strange things, but this version of the Doctor seemed to insist on doing everything by himself.

It was probably the teeth.

Funnily enough, on the fourth year, when the subject of Barty Crouch Junior had come up, he'd said nothing, and disappeared for several weeks. He was found later in the Room of Requirement, yelling at a mountain of books.

And then in the fifth year Umbridge had arrived. At which point Harry had decided to sit back, fetch some popcorn and watch.

She lasted all of one week.

There had been shouting, yelling, shaking and rumbling for a few minutes, no necessarily all in that order. It had started simply enough. The toad-like woman had been trying to quash rumours of Voldemort's return, enforce her will over the entire school, essentially standard for her. Then the Doctor had raised a hand, and asked about the book, much as Harry had himself, only with more veiled insults aimed at Umbridge.

She had insisted he not ask questions.

He'd insisted it was his job to ask questions.

She had told him that if that was the case, he could ask questions in his detention after class.

He had simply ignored her and kept asking questions. She'd quickly turned a funny pink colour and then she'd started yelling.

He started yelling back, much louder. It didn't help that he was already pretty loud to begin with.

Some of the Ravenclaw students had already begun making their way toward the door by that point.

Not even two minutes later the entire classroom was empty save the Doctor and Umbridge. The students hadn't actually gone far, they'd just planted themselves at the nearest safe distance and listened to the noise.

"Harry?" Ron asked. "Whose idea was it to give him a wand anyway?"

Harry dwelt on that one for a few minutes. "Good question," he admitted.

The two of them shared nervous looks.

Then the door of the classroom opened.

Well, the door fell off its hinges, followed by a great plume of smoke. From it, a scarfed shape flourished out, wand held firmly in the grasp of a battered but otherwise intact Doctor. Hovering a short distance away from the wand was a small rotating shape.

Spotting the small crowd, the Doctor made his way over to his fellow students, grinning triumphantly.

"Ah, hello," he beamed. "That did take a while, didn't it? Still haven't quite managed to get this wand working yet."

Ron stared at the object hovering next to his wand, as he looked toward the small crowd.

"By the way, is there anyone here willing to look after this?"

He noticed something Harry couldn't, and his smile somehow managed to increase.

"Ah, Misters Weasley. Would you two mind terribly holding on to this for me? Be careful, though, it's sharp and bad-tempered."

Harry swivelled to look. There, towards the edge of the crowd were Fred and George, who it seemed were handing out food and merchandising to everyone.

"What are you two doing here?" Hermione asked, as one of the twins carefully took the whatever-it-was from the Doctor.

"Oh," George said, trying to look offended. "We heard it from upstairs. And we've got to keep an eye on our chief bread-maker."

"Quite so," added Fred, handing out a shirt to another student. "Quite so. Our Doctor does earn us a tidy profit. Got to make sure he hasn't accidentally blown himself up."

"Oh," George added, handing Harry a small bag. "I believe these are your earnings, Mister Potter. Very lucky guess by the way."

Harry calmly took the bag of coins and shrugged. "Just happened to be right, I suppose."

Hermione gasped in horror, and stalked off. Ron meanwhile couldn't help staring at what the Doctor had been levitating.

"What is that, anyway?" he asked. He got his answer when it unfurled and hissed angrily at him.

"It happens to be Professor Umbridge," the Doctor mused, staring at what transpired to be an angry grey-ish kitten.

"But I'm not certain I got it right. It was supposed to be a toad."

* * *

3.4 (OracleMask)

As a seasoned time traveler, the Doctor knew better than to alter important past events to suit his whims unless the timeline really needed tampering with (as well as whenever he thought he could get away with it). But there was no harm with doing minor fixes, getting certain people to the airport on time, and so on.

Becoming a looper simply meant there were more events to choose from.

The Doctor, having Awoken just shy of his regeneration into Body No. Four, was once again aiming to drop Sarah Jane Smith off in Croydon instead of Aberdeen. Not being a looper meant Sarah couldn't properly appreciate the effort he went to but it helped to ease her resentment later on. And then there were the times the TARDIS decided to counter-meddle, making sure they arrived on Mars or Mexico or anywhere else that wasn't Aberdeen OR Croydon.

Once it had been Pompeii, at the same time that his Tenth self was there with Donna. It had been an interesting experience, though it also became immensely awkward when Sarah and Donna started gossiping.

This time, the Doctor landed square in Croydon. Sarah took her things and stormed out of the TARDIS without a backwards glance, letting the doors swing shut behind her. He had just turned back to the controls when there was a great banging at the door.

It opened to reveal a Sarah Jane who was somehow more incensed than she'd been five minutes ago.

"Alright, the joke's gone on long enough."

"Joke?"

Sarah waved behind her.

"This isn't Aberdeen," she said, "It's Croydon! Which means you've known all along about - about what's going on!"

His hearts gave a leap, and the Doctor did nothing to conceal the wild grin that appeared on his face.

"Yes, Sarah, I've known for quite some time that you live in Croyden and not Aberdeen."

"That's not funny - "

"But I hadn't known you were looping in time," the Doctor interrupted, "I was a bit concerned with making sure we didn't land in Ancient Italy again."

"Looping? ...Ancient Italy?"

"Although I recall that Pompeii was rather nice this time of year…"

* * *

3.5 (Masterweaver)

"PA-THET-IC LIFE FORMS! WE, THE DA-LEKS, WILL IM-PROVE YOUR STAN-DARD OF LIV-ING! WOR-SHIP OUR GEN-ER-OS-ITY AND BE GRATE-FUL WE DO NOT EX-TERM-IN-ATE YOUR SCUM FROM THE U-NI-VERSE!"

The Doctor blinked for a bit as his archenemies started building up shelters for the impoverished. Behind him, Clara hid a datapad and a smile.

* * *

3.6 (crossoverpairinglover, edited by OathToOblivion)

The Doctor, currently in his Time War incarnation (and considering he wasn't in it right now, it hopefully wasn't going to start up this time), couldn't even relax properly as he had a nice cup of coffee in the town he was visiting this loop.

For one thing, the town was sort of weird, even by his standards. He was sure some of his other incarnations would like it, but it was too...crazy looking for him.

Plus, it was named Death City. Death. City.

Who'd want to live in a place like that?

The Doctor had no idea who was looping here, and it really didn't matter. He just wanted a nice, quiet loop with no war, no murder and no pointless fighting.

One loop with a giant hand was more than enough for him…

"YAHOO HO HO!"

The Doctor barely jumped out of his chair in time as a small shape crashed from the sky and shattered his table, breaking his cup in the process.

The person who landed in front of him was a short human male, with blue hair that spiked in ways gravity should not allow, in a black muscle shirt that exposed a star shaped tattoo on his shoulder.

He sort of reminded him of Naruto, except more hyperactive, if that was even possible.

"I am Black Star!" he shouted in a way that even a Dalek would call 'dramatic'.

"...And your point?" the Doctor dryly asked. The boy pointed his fist at him, which began to glow sort of like that Danny Rand fellow from that loop with the Spider person.

"Fight me!"

"...Why the hell would I do that? I'm on vacation!" The Doctor complained. "I'd like to not be a warrior for a change, even if I cannot be a Doctor."

"You can call yourself whatever you want," Black Star smirked "The Juggler, The Painter or The Cook, I still want to fight. You cannot surpass the best if you do not climb the ladder of badasses, and I'm sure you fit in somewhere on that ladder."

The Doctor wasn't sure if he was glad the boy had no idea who he was, or not. But it looked like a fight was imminent...

"EX-TER-MIN-ATE!"

A small army of Daleks suddenly warped into being around them, all armed for war. This caused the Doctor to feel a sense of relief that Daleks should really not bring him.

"You know, Daleks are said to be the ultimate life forms, the superior species and the murderers of all other life forms," the Doctor said nonchalantly. The boy looked up the Doctor in surprise, apparently thrown off by their somewhat 'dorky' appearances, and ignoring the fact they were charging their lasers. "I'm sure you'll gain more points on your climb to being the best by taking out a Dalek Army than simple old me." And with that, he apparated away.

"WE ARE THE DA-LEKS! WE EX-TER-MIN-ATE IN-FER-IOR BEINGS!"

"Inferior huh? Well, I guess you mustn't have heard of me" Black Star gave a wide grin as he charged at the nearest one with his still glowing fist. "I AM BLACK STAR! I WILL SURPASS THE GODS LOOPING AMONG US! I WILL DEFEAT YOU ALL!"

"IL-LOG-ICAL!"

"HELL IT IS, TIN CAN!"

BANG!

* * *

Dusting his hands off after a long fight, Black Star proceeded to apparate away from the mass of broken Daleks.

Another win for the man who would surpass everyone.

* * *

3.7 (Scorntex)

It had started when he first woke up in the new Loop. He'd started off incredibly late in his life, after his tenth regeneration. Things had gone as they usually tended to, Rose, Mickey, Cybermen, Sarah (who wasn't awake), Martha, the Master, Titanic, Wilfred, Donna, all the usual things.

Except there hadn't been any Daleks. At all. Not even a peep, or a glimpse. And that troubled him.

So when the Medusa Cascade incident finally came along, he was surprised when Daleks weren't the ones that abducted the Earth. He still got zapped and wasted a regeneration, though, but it wasn't That Dalek that got him.

It only got worse once they reached the Crucible. The demonstration of the Reality Bomb was still there, only this time it didn't kill those unfortunate souls. Oh no. Davros' replacement for this Loop wasn't anywhere near as kind as that.

That was why they'd kidnapped the twenty-seven planets, and abducted lifeforms from each one. They needed a control group for the weapon.

And now they had it working.

Beside him, there was a horrified noise from Rose as the screen closed.

"Fascinating, isn't it?" their captor grinned, horribly. It was worse than Davros. At least he was Davros. In any other time and place, he would have called the person talking now a friend. "The bomb forcibly alters a beings' morphogenic field, permanently altering their body, enslaving their mind."

She nodded towards the screen, casually, "That was just tested on the prisoners. Full transmission will alter _every_ living being."

"The twenty-seven planets," the Doctor repeated, and this time the horror wasn't feigned, or subdued by confidence in Davros' failure. "They become one big transmitter."

"Across the entire universe..." the mad woman grinned. "...every species in its path will be altered. They will become like us, perfect. Harmonic. And that wavelength shall continue, breaking through the rift at the heart of the Medusa Cascade into _every_ dimension, _every_ parallel, _every single corner of creation!"_

Twilight Sparkle, the monster behind the Conversion Bomb, was now shaking with manic excitement.

"THIS IS OUR VICTORY, DOCTOR! **_THE PONIFICATION! OF REALITY! ITSELF!_**

* * *

3.8 (crossoverpairinglover)

The Doctor didn't know exactly how he ended up in a line up surrounded by a green skinned female, a raccoon, and a large, sentient, mobile tree, but it was probably interesting.

As was likely the tale of why a human six was tattooed to the back of each of his hands.

"...Peter Jason Quill..." one of the guards began discussing someone while the technological restraints were flashing around him for a change.

Odd, that wasn't his name. Did he just happen to be borrowing it for a loop?

"He's also known as Time Lord."

"Who calls him that?" a second guard asked in befuddlement.

"Himself mostly, wanted mostly on charges of minor assault, public intoxication and theft of over 4 tons of Jelly Babies."

The Doctor sighed to himself. It was going to be one of those loops... though the Jelly Babies sounded good right about now.

* * *

"So, you're replacing Quill?" the Raccoon huffed as the Doctor eyed his fellow prisoner.

"It would appear so. So... we just stay in prison all loop?"

The Raccoon shook him off. "Nah, we have to bust out to keep an Infinity Stone from ending up with Thanos, which is bad."

"With a name like Thanos, I highly doubt it would be good," the Doctor snarked back to the Raccoon looper.

"Well, it might be a bit tricky. Bar you and me, the rest of the gang who appears in this part of this Variant aren't Awake, and we aren't exactly carrying many of our big hitters around this part of the loop like Warlock and Quasar/Martyr/Whatever she's calling herself at the moment, so we can't afford to not have any of them. Sure, Groot will do what I ask him to here rather simply, and this Gamora isn't much harder, but man you don't want to know the incidents Quill's had with an Unawake Drax."

"Oh, Drax?" the Doctor seemed interested in that one. "What's he like?"

"They call him Drax the Destroyer."

"...Oh." That name was somewhat ominous, and painful.

* * *

3.9 (Blazingen1, edited by OathToOblivion)

The TARDIS materialized yet again in a familiar museum, the grinding noise of the Time Rotor fading out. A curious 11th Doctor poked his head out of the doors, quickly leaving the TARDIS. Following him was a confused looking Amy Pond, still so young, as she looked into the Museum the Doctor had brought them to.

"You've got a time machine. What do you need museums for?" she questioned.

The Doctor, deciding to stick to the script, declared, "Wrong! Very wrong! Ooh! One of mine! Also one of mine."

"Oh, I see! It's how you keep score," Amy decided.

Once again, they stood before the home box of the category 4 starliner, the black and burnt machine with Gallifreyan words written on them. Something that intrigued the Doctor was that the words on it often differed from baseline, even when there was no reason for River to do so.

"There were days, there were many days that these words could burn stars and raise up empires and topple Gods," the Doctor said, continuing his baseline spiel.

"What does it say?" Amy asked in impatience.

The Doctor took a good look, only to blink at the latest weirdness to cross his paths in the Loops. "Place Ads Here?" he asked in confusion.

* * *

3.10 (Scorntex)

It was a lovely beautiful day, the beginning of a new Loop, fresh with promise of excitement, a world holding its breath in anticipation.

"DOOOCCCCCCTTTTTTTAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"

Or perhaps the breath was actually that of a seriously aggrieved woman from Chiswick suddenly finding themselves Awake for the first time.

"Donna!" The Doctor exclaimed cheerfully, and perhaps a bit too loudly, given he'd been only a few feet away from his friend when she'd yelled.

The cheerfulness of seeing his friend again stopped dead when he saw the Look heading in his direction. And he felt the capital letter was needed, because it was the sort of gaze that caused some peoples heads to explode.

Donna was angry.

"WHERE AM I?" she bellowed. "HOW DID WE GET HERE?"

Donna paused, blinked and stared down at herself, then at the Doctor.

"AND WHY ARE WE FLIPPING PONIES?!"

Donna, in this case, happened to be an Earth pony, her mane and tail their usual bright red, and her coat a shade of brown not too far removed from the brown the Doctor happened to be sporting. And as a Cutie Mark she appeared to have a typewriter.

She blinked, then stared at him again. "Last I remember..."

Her eyes narrowed, and she glowered at him again. "Did you wipe my memories?" she hissed.

The Doctor paused for a moment, as he felt the sudden desire to be very far away. Very, very far away. Perhaps a few light years away. He wasn't sure it would actually save him exactly, but he'd at least have time to think.

Unfortunately, his mouth hadn't paused, meaning while he'd been pondering exactly what to do, his mouth had helpfully supplied Donna with "um."

"Did. You. Wipe. My. Memories?" Donna repeated, slowly this time.

The Doctor paused, scratching the back of his head with a hoof. "Er..."

Donna gave the Doctor a glare that should've, by all rights, incinerated him twice over.

"Right," she said. "I'm gonna KNOCK YOUR HEAD OFF!"

At this point Donna started advancing towards him. The only thing that saved the Doctor was that Donna wasn't used to the idea of hooves, and promptly fell over. Suddenly all thoughts of running were abandoned, and the Doctor moved over toward Donna, cautiously.

She didn't look angry now. She just looked embarrassed, and scared, and hearts-breaking-ly hurt.

"I haven't gone insane, have I?" she asked quietly. "This isn't something Time-Lordy you're doing while my brain melts, is it?"

"No," the Doctor said quietly, as he sat down next to her. "It's... it's tricky to explain."

"Try me," Donna muttered.

"Well, essentially there's this tree, called Yggdrasil..."

He explained, slowly and carefully as he could manage. After it was done, Donna just paused thoughtfully.

"But why am I Looping?" she eventually asked. Caught flat-footed by that, he didn't respond.

"I mean, why isn't Rose Looping, or Martha, or Jenny? Or all those others who travelled with you? Why am I ahead of them? I mean-" she scoffed slightly, "I'm just useless."

"No," the Doctor said, firmly, "no, you aren't."

"Yeah, I am," Donna frowned. "Can't even get being important right. Just messed it all up and failed."

"That's your mother talking. And..." he paused, staring at the sky above them. "If I were to use my not inconsiderable wisdom for a moment, it's because you're brilliant."

"'m not."

"Yeah," he said instantly. "you are. You're one of the most brilliant people I've ever met."

"Don'cha mean "pony"?" Donna asked, a very small grin appearing on her face.

"Oh," the Doctor sighed. "that's... detail, not important. But you are."

"Okay," Donna nodded. "If you don't wanna really tell me, fine. But why did you wipe my memories?"

The Doctor bit his lip. "Donna..." he started.

"C'mon," she said, staring straight through him as she did. "Just tell me, why didn't you do something about that?"

"There wasn't another way." He took a deep breath before continuing. "And I did try, in the Loops. I've tried every means I know, even a few I didn't, to try and find a way to stop that. Nothing ever works. Nothing."

Donna looked around at the sight of Ponyville, in all its brightly-coloured glory, before staring at the Doctor again. "Then how come I'm not dying right now?"

The Doctor stared at Donna. He blinked. With great care he brought his screwdriver out of his subspace pocket and scanned her. He stared at the screwdriver and hit it against the ground. He scanned Donna again. He stared at the screwdriver again. He brought out a spare screwdriver and scanned her with that. The same result.

"Hmm," said he.

"What?" Donna asked.

"Well..." he stretched out, "apparently you're a perfectly healthy pony."

"No brain-melting, then?" Donna asked.

"None, apparently."

"No need to get emotional for me, spaceman."

"I wasn't," he started, before smiling again. After a few seconds Donna smiled back.

"So, if we're in a Loop with ponies," Donna started, "are we safe?"

"That..." he paused. "That depends."

"Depends on what?"

"On who's Awake," he grinned.

"S' what's this place like, then?" she asked.

"Nice. Mostly harmless. Locals can be a bit weird, but they are really very nice ponies."

Donna hummed slightly, before frowning. "Do they have beaches?"

"They..." the Doctor paused. "I think they must have. I could ask."

"Alright," Donna smiled. "Let's ask the ponies if there are beaches."

"You sure you don't want to see what this place is like?" he asked, temptingly.

Donna gave this lengthy consideration. "I wanna relax first, after not having my brains melting."

"You know," the Doctor sighed, "Your brains weren't really going to... forget it. Beaches?"

"Beaches," Donna said firmly. "And if they've got cocktails, that's even better."

"Alright then," he grinned, "Welcome to the Loops, Donna Noble. Allons-y!"

* * *

3.11 (OathToOblivion)

Clara Awoke rather jarringly all things considered. _'Okay, where am I?'_ she wondered. She tried moving, but couldn't move. She tried blinking, couldn't do that either. Couldn't feel much of anything either. 'Just what is going-?' That was when the Loop Memories set in, much to her shock. At the same time, the memories of one of her many echoes across the Doctor's lifetime came to the forefront.

_"I am Oswin Oswald. I fought the Daleks and I am human. Remember me."_

"...BLI-MEY."

* * *

Elsewhere in time and space, a certain Type-40 TARDIS zoomed through the Time Vortex on its way to where its Thief needed to go next.

"Well! Business at the Ood Sphere taken care of ahead of schedule; Martha won't be calling for a while; where do you want to go next?" the Doctor asked of Donna while the two of them operated the console in tandem. While it was a bit hard to access at times, Donna could still call upon all of the memories the Doctor had at the time of the Meta-Crisis. Obviously, this gave her some skills in TARDIS Operation, among others.

"What, you're giving me a choice for once, Spaceman?" Donna asked in an amused tone.

The Doctor shrugged. "Truth be told, I want to shake things up a bit. Break the monotony," he admitted.

Donna snorted at this. "What, like the time you wore that sombrero everywhere?" she mocked.

"Oi! Sombreros are cool!" the Doctor cried indignantly, before facepalming at what he said. "Oh great. Chinny's surfacing ahead of schedule," he muttered.

"Chinny... the you with the bowtie I haven't met yet?" Donna asked in clarification. At his nod, she forged on. "Why do you never come visit whenever you're like that anyway?" she questioned.

"Oh, well, Chinny's my last regeneration in this cycle, meaning the Loop ends with him. And then I'm usually too busy making sure the Ponds, River, and Clara are alright, not to mention dealing with the "Great" Intelligence as well as a lot of other things that really end up eating away my time. Anyway, I-" The Doctor was interrupted, when the phone on the console started ringing.

Donna stared at it in confusion. "I thought you said Martha wasn't going to call for a while?" she asked.

"She won't," the Doctor replied. "And I mean, not only that, but Martha doesn't even have the TARDIS number; I've got her mobile," he continued, waving the mobile phone around in his hand.

"So who's calling?" Donna wondered.

"I guess we're going to find out," the Doctor said, picking up the phone. "Hello?" he asked.

_"Doctor? Is that you?"_ a very familiar voice rang out.

"Clara? You're certainly calling pretty early. I haven't even become Chinny yet," the Doctor said in surprise.

_"Yeah, it's me. Well, to be more accurate, my name this Loop is Oswin..."_ Clara trailed off on the other end.

"Oswin? But isn't that...ooh, that's not good," the Doctor winced, realizing what had happened.

_"Yeah, tell me about it. Can I get a pickup?"_ Clara asked.

"Right. Don't worry, Clara, we'll be right over!" the Doctor said before hanging up.

"What was that about?" Donna couldn't help but ask.

"One of my other Companions is Awake and in a precarious position right now. I need to go rescue her; it'll just be a simple go in, pick her up, get out. Simple, really," the Doctor said, zooming around the console.

"Since when does anything you do involve 'simple'?" Donna pointed out. The Doctor ignored her, and set the destination.

"Alright! Next stop, the Dalek Asylum!" he declared.

"Wait, Dalek what?!"

* * *

3.1 Doctor Who was the hardest time travel-based Loop to get started. But once that was done, places like Chrono Trigger were going to be easy.

3.2 Both of them are the Doctor, after all.

3.3 Stymieing Umbridge has become a favourite past time for Loopers in a Hogwarts Loop.

3.4 Sarah Jane Smith, known to many as the quintessential companion, has come to the Loops.

3.5 Clara became a genius-level hacker in the baseline. With the Loops...?

3.6 The War Doctor has a reputation he'd rather not have anymore.

3.7 Bureau Loops are considered among the worst of the Pony variants.

3.8 Well, he _is_ a Guardian of the Universe at home. A galaxy shouldn't be too much harder.

3.9 It's the little things that change sometimes.

3.10 Donna Awakens. The reason she's not dying is because Yggdrasil is now managing her memories, so her brain doesn't have to.

3.11 Clara can Awaken as any of her time-displaced selves. So the Doctor gets a Dalek companion this time around.


	4. Chapter 4

4.1

Clara was mildly confused when she Awoke to meet an Unawake Eleventh Doctor. She didn't get a ping from anyone, so it could have been one of those "Stealth Anchor" things the Doctor had talked about, but she wasn't sure on that.

"Doctor?"

"Yes, Clara?" he said, fiddling with something.

"How can you not be Awake?"

"What are you talking about? If I wasn't awake I couldn't be talking to you. Well, I suppose I could, but I'm pretty sure I'm not prone to sleep-talking. Or sleep-walking. Or sleep- Ow!" The bit of machinery the Doctor was working on sparked and he shook his hand. "Sleep-fixing!"

"No, that's not what I meant. You're the one who explained all this to me in the first place, you know. Okay, the Multiverse is broken and time is repeating-"

"Oh, the time-thing. Yes, the Time Lords have known about that for eons. Nothing to worry about. Though, the White Guardian is a little miffed, he told me ages ago that the Black Guardian was acting out because things kept being the same all the time."

"Sorry, what guardians?"

"Oh, just the Six-Fold Guardian of Time. Nothing to worry about."

"Anyways, not the point. You are the Anchor for our universe, which means that you are always Awake. And by 'Awake,' I mean able to remember other Time Loops."

"I guess that is a mystery. Bit hard to solve, though, considering I'd be both investigator and investigated."

"It could be that an Anchor from another Loop is here. That can happen sometimes. If they are, I'm sure we'll run into them sometime." Clara shrugged. "Let's just keep going. There's plenty to do, yeah?"

* * *

The time had come. Clara had been both anticipating and dreading this day. The Doctor on Trenzalore and his regeneration.

"I will always remember... When the Doctor was me." Eleven dropped his bow-tie, and with a flash Twelve took his place. "Gah! Kidneys! Still can't stand their colour!"

"Doctor?"

"Ah, Clara. I hope you've figured out how to fly the TARDIS by now, 'cause I don't think I can do it right now!"

"Wait, Doctor, you're Awake?!"

"Keep up, Clara, I'm always Awake, you know that!"

* * *

4.2

"Well, this is when we normally part ways, Doctor. I guess I'll be seeing you a few faces down the road." Sarah Jane stood in the TARDIS console room, bag packed for home.

"Actually, Sarah, I had a bit of a poor experience last Loop," said the Doctor, fidgeting with his scarf. "You see, I decided to do something strange for me and actually be Lord President of Gallifrey after I won the election." The Doctor shivered. "So many plots to keep track of, all that corruption and politics. Honestly, I could do with staying with you on our journey for quite a while longer." After a moment, the Doctor grinned his toothy grin. "I wonder what the Master will do if I don't show up for his plan?"

Sarah Jane smiled back and set her bag aside. "I have been wondering lately what you get up to between now and your next face."

The Doctor gave Sarah Jane a hug and moved over to the console. "Well, then, let's see how you get on with Leela of the Sevateem, eh?"

* * *

4.3 (Scorntex)

Webley's World of Wonders, proclaimed as one of the biggest human-build amusement parks throughout all of history, was quiet. There were people there, to the tune of several dozen nervous soldiers, one reluctant ruler, and a time-looping time-traveller who was occasionally checking her watch. But they were all keeping amazingly quiet.

The quiet may have had something to do with the Cyberman that had shown up, kidnapped a human girl, and vanished into the woodwork again. But also, they were in a giant abandoned amusement park in the middle of the night. On the plus hand, the soldiers had discovered why the place had a reputation for people disappearing.

It had been about thirty minutes since the Cyberman had made off with Angie and Artie Maitland, and the Doctor had promised to go find them. No one had seen him, or a hint of a Cyberman since.

And Clara Oswald was getting concerned. The first time she'd been through this nightmare, the Doctor had been possessed or taken over by an incredibly bizarre cyber... thing, one that apparently hadn't even been programmed with an indoor voice. And this time he'd assured her he had a means of "dealing with" the Cyber-Planner.

Like every other time the Doctor had asked her to trust him, this made her feel increasingly uneasy. The Doctor and well-formulated plans, as she had learnt from experience, weren't on speaking terms. And this was even after the however-many Loops he'd been through before her.

So she sat, checking her watch, outside Natty Longshoe's Comical Castle, worrying about Artie and Angie.

Well, she was worried about Artie. She was certain about that.

Then she heard the sound of a soldier yelling something. That caught her attention. That was probably the Doctor, meaning he was alive. Quickly, but not so quickly as to leave Porridge behind, she made her way to the drawbridge where the Doctor probably was.

That was when things went differently. He was yelling frantically to the soldiers. Angie and Artie were running, not towards the castle, but in the direction of the TARDIS.

And he wasn't covered in Cyber-things, or carrying a chessboard. That probably explained the frantic shouting.

What it didn't explain was what was in the small bags he, Angie and Artie all appeared to be carrying.

"Doctor," she asked tentatively, noticing the sheer amount of panic on his face, and the fact that he was almost out of breath, "what did you do?"

"No time!" he stated, before turning back to the soldiers. "C'moooooon! Everyone off the planet!"

"What's going on?" she heard Porridge, or Emperor Ludens Nimrod Kendrick Longstaff the 41st to his mates, ask.

The Doctor turned to him. "Still no time."

The soldiers, each looking increasingly bewildered, stared.

"Everyone, get to the Spacey-Zoomer," he hurriedly listed. "Box. Big blue box. Get inside big blue box. Don't ask questions, just go."

The soldiers stared blankly for a moment. Clara as well, before memory kicked in and reminded her she was technically in charge (well, unless Porridge felt like blowing his cover early).

"Right, you heard him. Everyone get to the Spacey Zoomer," she repeated. Instantly, the increasingly confused soldiers listened.

Clara stared at the Doctor, who'd turned around to glance at something behind him. "Don't suppose you could tell me what you did?"

He turned back to her, looking nervous and guilty. "I... might have been a bit too clever by half, this time."

One of her eyebrows raised. "This time?" she asked incredulously.

"Clara," he gulped. "We have minutes, at most, before they finish and come after us. If we can get to the TARDIS, we'll be safe."

And with that, he started running again. Clara followed after. Just before they reached the building the Zoomer was kept in, Clara felt something in her boots. She stopped, and turned, trying to figure out what it was. It felt like the whole planet was shaking.

The Doctor, having apparently noticed, turned around and grabbed her.

Once they were inside the TARDIS, the Doctor shut the doors, before nudging his way through several baffled soldiers.

"Yes, bigger on the inside," he said hurriedly. "Excuse me. Clara! If you can get past the soldiers, I need some help."

A few seconds later, and they'd managed to get the TARDIS launched. The soldiers quickly filed out of the way, trying not to look at anything.

"Sorry," Porridge spoke up a few seconds later. "But what did we just run from?"

The Doctor stared blankly at Porridge, and shifted uncomfortably for a moment, before staring back at the observation screen.

"Okay," he murmured to himself. "Basic abandoned planet, so assuming they take everything they can get their hands on..."

He hemmed and hawed. Meanwhile, Clara stared at the bags Artie and Angie had death-grips on.

"Artie," she said, as gently as possible. "I don't suppose I could see what's in that bag, could I?"

Slowly, he handed the plastic bag over to her. Cautiously, she opened it, and looked inside. Instantly, her head whipped up and turned to look at the Doctor. Whatever he was staring at, it was with wide-eyes.

"Doctor! Why is there what appears to be cake in this bag?"

He stared, then motioned for her to look at something. She made her way over to the screen. Time and experience with the Doctor, and the Loops, had taught her to be ready for anything that it could have possibly been, and even a few things that it couldn't.

What she hadn't been expecting was for a large pink blob to be present on the surface of Webley's World.

The Doctor was grinning nervously. "Oops?" he tried.

"Oops?" she repeated. She turned back to stare at the screen, then back to the Doctor. "What did you do?!"

* * *

_Some time ago..._

The Doctor screamed. He had been planning on doing something amazingly brilliant and clever to counteract the Cyber Mites this time. It hadn't worked, meaning once again he had the Cyber-Planner crawling, that cold and vast insanity, crawling through his brain.

"Relax, just relax," the voice, his voice, only devoid of warmth and feeling, soothed. "You are being incorporated and upgraded into the Cyberiad. If you just relax, you'd find this a perfectly pleasant experience."

He ignored it, and focused on locking away any memories the Cyber-Planner could really use. It guffawed to itself as it found the memories of the Time War, and the Time Lords. It paused briefly as it found that despite him having knowledge of the Cyber-species, they had no knowledge of him.

He also, and with the greatest care and discretion, tried to hide the fact that he was hiding a secret weapon from Mister Clever Program. A secret anti-viral program he'd acquired a long while back, on the recommendation that sooner or later it'd come in handy.

That hadn't exactly been the way the pony who'd given it to him had put it, but it was the essential gist.

Mister Clever had noticed.

"Oh, dear," he sneered, apparently trying on one of the Doctor's previous voices and failing. "I hope you weren't planning on using that program. The Cyberiad boasts truly fantastic anti-viral software. Your little virus, it won't do a thing to me."

The Doctor had just silently glowered at his foe across their mental landscape. Mister Clever paused at that.

"Oh? Did someone think he had the upper hand? A cheat he could bring in at the last moment?"

"I wouldn't open it," the Doctor thought. Mister Clever paused. The vast data-network of the Cyberiad paused. Tentatively, they gave the object the most passive scans they could, just to be certain.

These scans took only a fraction of a second. It took two seconds longer for Mister Clever's frown to vanish.

"The hell?" he uttered. "What's in this program? This is your secret weapon? Utter GIBBERISH?! If I weren't a program, I'd feel downright insulted. Actually, I think I'm going to be insulted anyway."

The Doctor shrugged, "Go right ahead."

Mister Clever stared blankly. Behind him, in the vast glowing branches representing the billions upon billions of active Cyber-minds, one light went out.

"Did you feel that?" Mister Clever asked.

"Feel what?" the Doctor asked, innocently, as another light went out.

He wasn't entirely certain what the program he'd been given did. Apparently no-one it was ever tested on was able to give the same answer, and that only applied to anything that still had its sanity after even looking at the program.

"Oh," Mister Clever gasped. "You already set it loose. That's..."

The image of Mister Clever began to distort. "That's NOT FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIII-*"

The Doctor suddenly found himself coming back to blissful, Cyber-Planner free consciousness, as the mites dropped to the floor. A quick check revealed Artie and Angie were fine as well. A quicker check revealed what was left of Webley was out for the count.

Then he noticed the lights were flickering.

"Uh-oh," he muttered.

The lights blinked out, and there was the feeling of something hissing and whirring. The lights came on again, and he noticed he, Angie and Artie all appeared to have paper hats on their heads.

"Please stand by," a not-so cold, not so mechanical voice whirred. "Party procedural protocols unable to be implemented at present. Have a nice day."

"Did that-?" Artie started, pointing a finger at the Cyberman, which appeared to have cocked its head slightly.

The Doctor, weighing the options, and considering the Cyberman appeared to somehow be putting up banners and balloons, decided on the only sensible option.

* * *

The Cyberiad consisted of untold billions upon billions minds, each active and ever increasing in knowledge as new beings were incorporated into their galaxy-spanning network. If it were possible to describe, the nearest equivalent would be trillions of stars, blazing with a cold, indifferent light.

However, something was happening. Star after star was blinking out, picosecond after picosecond. Something was tearing its way through the network at a spend unseen throughout the Cybermen's long history.

Firewalls were erected, quarantines put in place. No good. The program found its way past or through everything in its path.

And then, the Cyberiad noticed something strange. The fallen and corrupted sections blazed to life again, new programming rewriting everything that it held pure and sensible.

This new thing was no longer dedicated to improving the stain of life wherever it was found. Instead, it had decided that life was to be celebrated.

With parties. Endless parties.

* * *

Clara stared at the Doctor for a moment, then to the blob of pink on the planet's surface.

"So... the Cybermen are now... what, exactly?" she asked.

"Bright pink?" the Doctor shrugged helplessly. Clara tried to show just how unhelpful she found that answer without resorting to the use of her hands.

She failed.

"Excuse me," Porridge coughed. "But did you actually reprogram the Cybermen? That's impossible."

"Yeah," the Doctor nodded. "I know."

"But they won't try and upgrade anyone anymore?" Porridge asked, cautiously.

"Oh, no, not any more. But..."

"But?"

"They will probably try and build a spaceship first chance they get, and spread across the universe." The Doctor shifted. "And throw you a few dozen "we're sorry for upgrading you" parties first. Might want to warn the Empire about that."

Porridge suddenly looked startled, followed quickly by resignation. "You knew I was the Emperor?" he asked quietly.

"Sorry," Clara said.

"You know," the Doctor said casually. "This old girl can go anywhere in time and space. I could drop you off somewhere quiet."

Porridge looked intrigued for a moment. "But what about them?" he asked, pointed to the soldiers.

"Drop them off somewhere as well," the Doctor shrugged.

"Somewhere in our own time will do," Porridge said.

"Your choice," the Doctor said, before casually flicking a switch.

Angie Maitland, feeling put out by being ignored, just sniffed. "I knew Porridge was the emperor already."

"Yes," the Doctor said. "You're very smart. Now hush up."

* * *

4.4 (Detective Ethan Redfield)

The steady thrum of the Sonic Screwdriver echoed through the workshop. The building had countless consoles and futuristic computer chips shaped like stones in every nook and cranny. Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart stepped through the doorway. His eyes gazed around, noting the parts scattered everywhere, and proceeded further inside. Ever since the Doctor requested a larger warehouse, he was curious what the Doctor had been doing with it. And now, he would find out.

At the center of the warehouse, something resembling what he could only describe as a spaceship of unknown origin. He strode around the vessel, much larger than the TARDIS and looked like it could fit a small squad of his soldiers within comfortably. A ramp opened from the rear as the Third Doctor, who rubbed his hands together on a rag as if he was removing grease from his fingers even though nothing was visible on his hands. His head turned to the soldier and gave a small smile, "Ah, Brigadier, come to check and see what I'm working on?"

The Brigadier showed no visible reaction, instead staying somewhat stoic. "You requested this new warehouse last time we spoke. I was curious to see what new project you came up with. What is all this?"

The Doctor looked between him and the ship. "My efforts to recreate the TARDIS from scratch hit a dead end. So, I acquired a vessel from a well respected trader recently. I am currently modifying it to recreate my TARDIS. There are...unfortunately, some limitations in my design. For example, the time circuits are nontransferable so I won't be able to travel through time in it. However, I feel my TARDIS' ability to instantly travel across space is feasible."

The Brigadier paced towards the craft and laid his hand upon the ship, rubbing his fingers across the hull. "Astounding. And this supplier, would he be willing to deal with UNIT by chance? We may one day need spacecraft to deal with, say, the Daleks should they decide to invade in force and exterminate humanity."

The Doctor shook his head and patted the Brigadier on the shoulder, lying through his teeth. Not that the Brigadier could tell. "I'm afraid not. He only comes by this sector once every 50 years and I was only so lucky to know when he would be in the area."

The Brigadier shook his head. "Unfortunate. What is the original name of the craft?"

"I believe it was once called the Delta Flyer."

The Brigadier nodded, feeling that indeed this vessel was aptly named, though he knew not why.

* * *

4.5 (crossoverpairinglover)

"NO IN-FER-IOR BEINGS ESCAPE THE DA-LEKS!"

Two beings back to back in Green Lantern green, a brown haired hero and a traveling observer in a bow tie so horrible it could cause an interplanetary dispute that not even the powerful Green Lantern Ring could hide, were surrounded by a red and black painted army of Daleks in space.

"Dalek Manhunters. Of all the things this loop could give me, it was freaking Dalek Manhunters!" Hal Jordan, ring slinging hero of the Green Lantern Corps complained while he and the Doctor had to dodge a good hundred green energy blasts from the levitating horrors.

"I take it they are troublesome?" the Doctor inquired of these 'Manhunters' as he used his ring to form a department store planet's worth of Sonic Screwdrivers to skewer each and every Dalek in sight.

"Annoying, yes. Troublesome, depends on the loop," Hal quipped as he responded with a sports league worth of baseball bat constructs to knock them away. "I highly doubt they are actually too dangerous to us, but I happen to want to keep Kilowog's planet in existence if possible for once so let's end the..."

"END THE DA-LEKS!? NO IN-FER-IOR BEING ENDS THE DA-LEKS! NOT WHEN THE DA-LEKS CAN PER-FORM FUSION INTO THE ULT-IMATE FORM!"

"Fusion..."

"Ultimate form..." Lantern and Doctor alike trailed off in horror as each and every Dalek Manhunter turned into red energy and merged into a singular glowing orb of energy, that quickly began to take shape into something much larger.

Into a shape that sent shivers down Hal's spine and gave the Doctor a sense of dread he rarely ever felt in baseline.

As a red and black painted fusion of Dalek and Ultimate Threat loomed over them, both Loopers floated back a good few yards.

"NO IN-FER-IOR ENTITIES ESCAPE THE DA-LEK MONITOR! THIS PLA-NET SHALL CEASE TO CON-TINUE EXIST-ENCE!"

"Oh crap," Hal muttered. "Not even Bruce probably has a plan for this, and I've got nothing."

"No, he probably does." The Doctor just had that gut feeling in him, currently at war with a feeling of absolute terror.

* * *

4.6 (Detective Ethan Redfield)

The sounds of angry mutterings about every which thing regarding humanity and their televisions and IDs could be heard even as Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart entered the Doctor's workshop. He looked to Jo Grant and asked, "What's he on about this time?"

Jo looked to the Doctor. "I think someone stole Bessie."

She picked up a small piece of paper on the TARDIS' console and handed it to the Brigadier. The Brigadier blinked as he read the one word on the card and asked, "Geronimo? What does that even mean?"

The Doctor looked up, clearly incensed. "It means, Brigadier, that one of my future selves has taken Bessie for a joyride around the universe! The only one who could steal Bessie with the anti-theft force field in place. And when I find him, I will give him a firm piece of my mind!"

* * *

4.7 (Scorntex)

It had started, as with so many bad ideas, with a casual suggestion over lunch. Plans had been drawn, and devised. A fusion of whatever tech they could find, mixed with what the Doctor half remembered from his time at the Time Lord Academy.

For their first test, they had found an elderly star, in an otherwise empty and dead solar system. Partially so that their work could go unimpeded, but also so that no neighbours would complain if something went wrong.

After months of painstaking research, the machine designed to prevent stars from dying was activated. A mighty pulse of energy was blasted into the core of the star.

And it worked. All too well in fact. Slowly, the dying star changed, and shifted. Massive hooves formed and cooled, at the end of legs that could stride across worlds, attached to a body which dwarfed any other in existence.

The first Star Pony blinked, with amazingly bright blue eyes. Its mouth moved, reveal teeth the size of dwarf planets. And then, with a twitch of its cosmic nebula of a tail, it rushed away into the infinite, faster than a speeding photon, leaving behind only the greatest afterimage in existence.

The Doctor gaped silently for a moment, before turning to look at Twilight, who was in turn looking at Pinkie, who had stars in her eyes.

"Aww," Pinkie grinned. "It takes after me."

With glacial speed, Twilight turned to look at the Doctor. Her face was unnaturally pale.

"Blame Trixie?" she barely managed to say. The Doctor, for his part, could only nod.

"Blame Trixie."

* * *

4.8 (Blazingen1, edited by OathToOblivion)

Well, here they were again, in front of the Category 4 Starliner's homebox. The Doctor couldn't help but wonder what would be different this time.

"There were days, there were many days that these words could burn stars and raise up empires and topple Gods," he said, almost on autopilot.

"What does it say?" Amy wondered.

The Doctor blinked as he read the Gallifreyan words. "'Do you like parties?' Oh, Pinkie, never change," he fondly said.

* * *

4.3 cont. (Scorntex)

The Siege of Trenzalore, the war of the one man against the armies from all of time. The Doctor's final fight of his final life, against his most bitter foes.

But this time, there was a difference. The Doctor did not fight this fight alone.

A fleet of Draconian warships had been knocked out of the sky by the appeared of the hyper-dreadnought as it appeared over Trenzalore, defying all the laws of physics just by showing up. Several of the "hanger-on" combatants had fled, fearing the new arrival.

When the great histories of the Church of the Papal Mainframe were kept in the Delirium Archive, along with all other records of their existence, many tour-guides lamented dearly that the archivists of the siege had recorded the only thing Her Holiness Tasha Lem had uttered on seeing the Cyber-naught appear in high orbit.

And it was thus: "Oh, bugger."

And why not? For centuries, legends had spread across the universe of the horrific Cybermen, those survivors of a dead world who had spread amongst the stars, making all who fell under their shadow cyber-kind. Until the day they stopped.

The day, long after the Cyber-Wars had ended with so many, many lives wiped out, when the Cybermen apparently changed their minds, en masse. The day, they say, the man known only as The Doctor, created something... different.

It was whispered, in the dark parts of the night, when parents sought to scare their children that they would tell of what came after the Cybermen. Gone was the desire for unity, and uniformity, life without life. Gone were the cold steels and the harsh buzz.

Replaced by the desire that none went without... fun. Replaced by bright colours and loud noises, and the occasional squeak of a balloon.

The army of the twelve-billion party-makers, they said, had spread across the stars trying to make sure that everyone had a "good time".

And only the bravest, the boldest of beings would ever dare claim they didn't enjoy those parties. For it was said, in shadowy underrealms that Man Knew Not Of, that if the Cyber-ponies heard those words, they would descend on a world like the hoof of an angry god.

Which was naturally, according to the pre-eminent historians of their day, a load of utter bollocks.

Down on the surface below, the Doctor had no knowledge of what was about to happen. A group of Drahvins had actually made it past the church's sensors, and rather than admire the lovely houses or the trees, or the snow, instead decided to shoot everything.

"That's an army for you," a part of him spoke up. He ignored it. He disabled their weapons with a simple bit of sonic trickery, waiting for them to get in range of his incredibly fiendish and well-prepared trap.

It never happened, as his screwdriver alerted him to the flash of a teleport flare. And an odd bouncing noise. And then a sight he'd never expected to see occurred.

A bright-pink metal pony was hopping merrily along the snow. A very familiar bright pink metal pony.

The panicked flight from Webleys. That bright horde of pink, swarming over the surface of the planet. And there he'd been, happily having shut that one out of his memories for so long, and now this had come along and ruined it.

The pony paused, its bright blue eyes (or were they photoreceptors?) staring at the Drahvins, who quickly responded to its appeared by shooting at it.

To the Doctor's not-exactly total surprise, it did nothing. The metal pony, on the other hand, just stared at them.

"Hostility detected," it chirruped. "Deploying Party Cannon."

Previously unseen seams running along the pony's body split, and hissed, and folded. Its shape altered from a pony as it converted into... a cannon?

Quickly remembering himself, the Doctor tried to set off one of his traps. It didn't work.

Instead of the normal effects of a cannon being fired, like a bright flash and screaming, there was a mild squeak, and a rustling noise. Without looking, the Doctor could tell there was a party hat on his head. He looked over towards the Drahvins, who were unconscious and covered in streamers.

"Hi." He turned to look into the bright pink eyes of the Cyber-pony (He wasn't calling it that, a voice that sounded suspiciously like his immediate predecessor groaned inside his head).

"Hello?" he tried. "I'm going to assume you're not actually Pinkie Pie?"

Amazingly, the Cyber-pony scoffed. "No, silly. I'm just a Cyber-pony, advanced scout."

"But..." he paused, as a vital detail of Trenzalore's defences came back to him. "There's no technology allowed on this planet! You can't be here!"

Later on, he was going to regard that one as a pretty poor defence all-round. Somehow, the Cyber-pony shrugged.

"Magic?" it suggested, before it began smiling. "It's really nice to see you again, by the way."

"Again?" he asked weakly. It nodded.

"Yuh-huh. If it weren't for you, we'd all still be all "grrr! You'll become like us! No cake for anyone!" And that'd be so sad, and not funny, and then we heard you were holding off a siege here, so we thought we'd come and help you out."

The Doctor hadn't really been listening. He'd been too busy thinking about how much the Cyber-pony sounded like Pinkie. They'd even got her voice right. Which was why that last statement took him by surprise.

"Help... out?" he repeated, slowly. He didn't think the answer would do him any good though.

**"ATTENTION, TRENZALORE!"** a voice boomed from on-high, before there was an odd series of muffled sounds. **"Oops. Sorry. Got the dials mixed up. Anyway! Hi. This is the Cyber-Dreadnaught No. Oh-who-cares-about-numbers! We heard about this siege, and we thought instead of being so sad about it, we'd help cheer you up from the constant threat of annihilation by throwing you... a PARTY! Just hold still while we activate the orbital-range party cannons."**

And with a squawk, the voice vanished. The Doctor just stared ahead blankly for some time. "I think I need to go sit down for a few days," he said to noone in particular.

There was a mildly mechanical whimper from the Pi-... the Cyber-pony. "But you'll miss the party!" it said plaintively.

The Doctor stared his best Old-Crotchety-Man Stare at the robo-pony, but it didn't appear to have any effect whatsoever. "Good!" he announced, turning in the direction of the church he usually got a few minute's rest a day in.

"Wake me up if an actual serious threat attacks," he declared. "And not just for some huffy Draconians! An actual threat!"

* * *

4.9 (crossoverpairinglover)

The Doctor really wanted a peaceful loop for a change.

He didn't want a Time War.

He didn't want assassins with NPD and ADHD trying to kill him.

He just wanted some peace, and quiet-.

**THE DOCTOR IS IN!**

Huge blaring letters formed in the air above him, causing the wanderer to glare at them.

"What the-?" he complained, before he found himself surrounded by a giant ape with a necktie, a giant penguin with a hammer and a short boxer with green gloves.

**FIGHT! **

"Wait, what's going on-?" the Doctor tried to ask, before the penguin smashed him in the torso with his giant hammer and sent him flying off screen.

* * *

4.10 (Valentine Meiken)

Harold Saxon, also known as The Master, looked at the opposing politician, a old man that he didn't recognise. The old man was wearing a vaguely ratty coat and a scarf.

"People of England, that man promises big, but can he stand up to those promises?" The man announced. "He kisses babies and gets celebrity endorsements. Me..."

The man paused, before taking out what looked suspiciously like a sonic screwdriver with a red tip. He twisted it, causing several thousand Toclafane to appear, dropping from the sky as they were clearly dead. "Next alien invasion, and oh, we've had plenty... Do you want some man in a nice suit, or someone who can stop an invasion before it even starts?"

The Master was furious as the strange old man won by a landslide, simply because he'd used the recent exploits of his nemesis to drum up support for himself as the Prime Minister of England. When he approached that strange man, he looked at him with a glare.

"How did you know they were there?" the Master growled.

"I didn't. I relied on how big your ego is, Master," the man stated. "And yes, I am Who you think I am..."

The War Doctor walked off, whistling to himself as he saw the Master storm off, having realized that his big plan with the last of humanity turned into his own personal army had failed before it had even began. He'd not even taken a year to do it.

* * *

4.11

"Excuse me, Mr. Uzumaki."

Naruto turned to look. There was almost no one in the Loops who addressed him like that. "Yeah?"

The man stepped out from the shadows behind Naruto and held out a black gloved hand. "My name is Masuta, and I've been wondering something," he asked.

"What's that?" replied Naruto, shaking the proffered hand.

"Why were you and the other Original Seven the first to Loop?"

"I actually asked Inari about that once, way back when. It had something to do with balancing things. If we count Keiichi's place as one of us, even though they're not Looping, then they're balanced by Nerima: Wishes vs Curses, Brains vs Brawn, that kind of thing."

"So what about the rest of you?" Masuta stroked his beard in contemplation.

"Well, Lina's world is all about outside magic, channeling the power of others to cast spells, which is balanced by the inner magic of Hogwarts. Usagi's magic is all about healing and life, while Ichigo's stuff deals with death and the afterlife. Me and Shinji... Hope and Despair. In our baselines, I kept going in the face of impossible odds, never giving up the hope that things would change. Shinji just fell deeper and deeper into depression, until his baseline self just decided to kill everyone in despair."

Masuta nodded, but said nothing else.

"Once we were going, the system had begun to stabilise. But it wasn't done yet, so they started working on other stuff, and the more places that started Looping, the more stable things were, so they activate more places and the cycle continues. Then there was the Crash. That was... Nasty. I think we're still feeling out some of the shockwaves of the event, even if it's been a ton of Loops since."

"Thank you for telling me, Mr. Uzumaki. I wasn't sure there was a reason, exactly, but it's nice to know." Masuta smiled ruefully. "Not that there's anything I can do with the information, of course."

"Of course."

"Have a good Loop, Mr. Uzumaki."

"You too, Masuta." As Masuta started walking away, Naruto added. "You may want to let him know you're Looping. You'd be surprised what the Loops can do for best enemies."

Masuta paused. "I'm afraid I have no idea of whom you speak, Mr. Uzumaki. As I said, have a good Loop."

* * *

4.1: Sometimes the companions can Awaken before the Doctor does. It just doesn't happen often.

4.2: Six said he should have stayed on Gallifrey, because of how rotten it had become. He'll never say that again.

4.3: Pinkie Pie's Anti-AI Partywall. Use with caution.

4.4: The TARDIS herself is forbidden in other Loops, but dematerialization is not.

4.5: Yeah... Good-bye universe?

4.6: It can be difficult, dealing with yourself.

4.7: Things can go a little... strange with Pinkie around.

4.8: Sometimes the text on the black box is the way the Doctor learns of a visiting Looper.

4.9: In honour of Smash 4 coming out. Don't worry, someone explained it to him later.

4.10: Gallifreyan politics are a nightmare. Earth politics (especially for a time traveller) are a vacation in comparison.

4.11: Here come the drums...


	5. Chapter 5

5.1

Chandra Nalaar blinked Awake, and immediately noticed she was in a Fused Loop. In part because the place she was in looked like a restaurant made out of ice, and also because she was wearing a waitress uniform and arguing with a bearded man at a table.

"Glitz!" came a surprised shout from behind her. Glancing back, she noticed a poofy-haired woman and a short guy in off-white, carrying an umbrella.

"What? Never heard of him," said the guy her unAwake self had been arguing with. He was holding out a card which her in-Loop memories and a Loop in the Hub (where her name had become "Felicia Day") told her was a credit card. Deciding to play along for now, she took the card and headed for the counter.

A few moments later, she was approached by the short guy she had seen. "I imagine that you're feeling rather Loopy at the moment, hmm?"

"Yeah. Chandra Nalaar," she held out a hand, which he promptly shook.

"I'm the Doctor, pleasure to meet you, Miss Nalaar."

"So, what are we up to in this Loop?"

"Well, at the moment, we have to retrieve a power source from the Dragon of Ice World, then tell Kane that his chance at revenge is lost because his home planet has been dead for two thousand years. He melts himself, Glitz takes the city-ship, then we go gallivanting off to adventure. How's that sound?"

Chandra grinned wickedly. "I'm always up for something new."

"Excellent! By the way, you're replacing a friend of mine this Loop, so I hope you can handle the same things she can."

Chandra just lit a fire in her hand in response.

"Ah. It seems like Ace, you must be an expert in calorification, incineration, carbonization, and inflammation."

"Okay, the only word I recognized there was 'incineration.'"

"Considering they're synonyms, that's okay."

Chandra just shrugged. "Whatever. Lead the way, Doc."

The Doctor scowled. "I'm not 'Doc,' I'm 'the Doctor.'"

"Whatever you say... Doc." Chandra grinned. The Doctor rolled his eyes and smiled. This young woman was so much like Ace, it was actually rather amusing.

* * *

5.2

Sokka and Katara Awoke as normal, in their fishing trip canoe, and did a quick run-down of things, with only one responding ping. Those times Aang did manage to Awaken a hundred years ago, he would usually change things up a bit. But-

Katara frowned. "Not Avatar, but Doctor? That's new."

"Wonder if it's that Doctor? I heard recently that they got his Branch Looping." Sokka had also heard a lot of disbelief in that statement, but he'd come to know the impossible in these things.

"Could be. If everything else is the same, he should still be in the iceberg."

The Water Tribe siblings piloted the canoe quickly through the water until they found the right iceberg. After so many Loops, it had become the work of a single waterbending move to both pull the spherical iceberg out of the ocean and split it open.

A blast of golden, flame-like light rose out of the opened ice, streaking into the sky.

* * *

The Master looked through his spyglass at the plume of regeneration energy so far away. Yes, it was truly the Doctor. Though he had learned of the "ping," amongst other things important to a Looper, he would never respond. He would be like what he had heard of the "Star Trek" Loopers: a Stealth Looper. It was a test of sorts, seeing if the Doctor could tell he was Awake.

"Uncle," said the Master, playing his role as his memories dictated. "Do you realize what this means?"

"I won't get to finish my game?"

A cruel smirk formed, hidden. "It means our search has come to an end. That light is seen whenever the Doctor is reborn. It must be him."

"It could just be the celestial lights, Prince Koschei. Please, sit. Why don't you enjoy a cup of calming Jasmine tea?"

The Master was unsure how to feel about that name. An alias he took before he was the Master. In any case, he still was the Master, not "Koschei." Regardless, it was his name this Loop, so he'd play along.

"I don't need any calming tea, Uncle. Helmsman! Change course for that light!"

* * *

The Doctor looked young. Not twelve-years-old young, like Aang, but younger than they expected. He staggered out of the broken iceberg and looked up at the Water Tribe Loopers.

"Well, hello! I'm the Doctor!" He paused. "Hmm, tenth face again. Strange how often that happens in Fused Loops, but that's the whims of fate, eh?"

"I'm Sokka, this is my sister Katara."

"Pleasure to meet you. So, what's your Loop about?"

"Hundred year war. The Fire Nation killed all the Airbenders and have been doing their best to take over the rest of the world. Our goal is to stop Fire Lord Ozai and, with him, the war."

"Sounds good. Not the right face for a war, but I can probably deal."

The was a bizarre groaning sound from the inside of the iceberg, which attracted the Doctor's attention. He hopped, flailing a bit as he realized that he jumped slightly higher than he expected, and looked down.

"Well, that's a new look for you, Sexy."

Mildly confused, Sokka climbed up next to him. It was a Flying Bison, as normal, but this one had blue arrows, rather than the normal brown. "Sexy?"

"My TARDIS. She's not Awake, but she sometimes follows me in non-TARDIS forms. Well, I say follows, but-"

"I get it. Think she's up to flying?"

The Doctor slid down the side of the ice and lay his head on Sexy's. She groaned again, that bizarre sound Sokka couldn't quite associate with a Flying Bison. "Hmm, not right now, she's kind of tired. Should be up to swimming, though!"

"Alright, we'll take you back to our village. Katara can start teaching you waterbending and then we'll see if Zuko or Iroh's Awake, and if not just do our best to outfox them and head north."

* * *

5.3 (cipher100)

Currently in his tenth regeneration, the Doctor was gaping in open mouthed horror and mumbling incoherently at the sight before him. For you see, his current companion had violated something precious that he treasured very dearly.

The inside of the TARDIS was clean.

Not just clean though, completely overhauled. Everywhere the Doctor looked, he could see modifications to his 'beautiful' TARDIS. All the frayed wiring and exposed mechanisms were repaired and placed behind their panels that once littered the floor. Even the control console had been reworked. Now it sported an updated interface that had been streamlined and possibly idiot-proofed.

The seats even had SEAT BELTS.

"Donna!" the Doctor called in the voice that all his companions knew meant 'run and don't look back'.

"Oi! I'm right here you know," Donna replied, lifting herself out of the grates in the floor.

"Donna, what have you done to my TARDIS?" the Doctor asked, still in shock from what he was seeing around him.

Shrugging, Donna said, "What? I was renovating! Making it more efficient. When was the last time you replaced the thermal couplers anyway?"

"But it's MY TARDIS!" the Doctor stated in exasperation.

"Yes, and I made it better. Now hush up and let me work. I'm going to see if I can fix the Chameleon Circuit, which you probably broke when you first stepped into the old girl." Having said her piece, Donna pushed the Doctor aside and continued with her work. The Doctor opened his mouth to continue but wisely closed it after a second. He knew there was one thing he would never be able to do.

He would never win an argument with Donna Noble.

* * *

5.4 (fractalman)

'Well, this is certainly the earliest I've woken up yet,' the Doctor thought while sitting in a crib. Before he could check what few loop memories he had, however...

"GO TO SLEEP! GO TO SLEEP! GO TO SLEEEP LIT-TTLE TIME-LORD! GO TO SLEEP! AND WHEN YOU WAKE! YOU WILL BE A DA-LEK-SLAVE!"

...And apparently, Daleks were nannies this loop. 'Well this is going in my top umpteen creepiest loops.'

* * *

5.5 (Blazingen1, edited by OathToOblivion)

"There were days, there were many days that these words could burn stars and raise up empires and topple Gods," the Doctor said on literal auto-pilot. He had borrowed the Teselecta this Loop, just for the hell of it.

"What does it say?" Amy Pond asked impatiently.

The Doctor frantically took over manual control as he saw that the text was different again. "'Do you want to build a snowman?' Must be Anna," he commented, referring to the Looper from the 'Frozen' Branch. Although why she was asking him confused him. Then he realized that the homebox he was supposed to read was on the other side of the hall. Sure enough, River's regular message was on there.

...Wait, then how did Anna learn Gallifreyan and who was she speaking to?

* * *

5.6 (crossoverpairinglover)

The Doctor, currently in his form where he wore a fedora and scarf with the teeth and curls, was staring down a dark trench-coat-wearing figure who had his own fedora as well as glowing white eyes hidden in his hat's shadow.

Meanwhile, this stare down was being observed from a few thousand feet above the planet in the (hopefully safe) Watch Tower.

"You're seeing this, right?!" the green dressed archer nervously asked the other members of the Justice League, who looked similarly nervous.

"Yes, we do see the Doctor in a staring match with the Phantom Stranger. I'm waiting for reality to end!" a young fellow in a red suit crossed by yellow bolts exclaimed dramatically. The dark cloaked man who looked the least unnerved glowered at him.

"Reality won't implode from The Doctor having a staring match with the Phantom Stranger, Wally. At the most, Earth will start fluctuating in time, and most likely nothing will happen."

"But do we know for sure?!" the super hero now identified as Wally West, the 3rd Flash, exclaimed. Hal Jordan, Green Lantern, shook his head.

"The Doctor only just began looping and none of us really understand the Stranger even though our looping experiences predate everyone except the O7 and our counterparts in the Marvelverse. I'd call watching from a distance the best call in this case."

"From orbit though?" Green Arrow pointed out as Superman frowned.

"All the better to react to temporal alterations."

"Say, you think the Stranger's looping?" Flash vouched the question, causing the League to exchange contemplative looks.

"Could we tell?" Batman offered a straight answer to the question.

The great higher entity staring match continued.

* * *

5.7 (OathToOblivion)

It's not every day that a God and a Time Lord walk into a bar. But then, this was no ordinary day. Zurvan had finally gotten enough time off to take a break, and he was spending this part of it within the Doctor Who Loop. Naturally, with the Doctor, who was currently on his first incarnation of his second cycle (the 12th Doctor). The two sat at a table, sipping from some Saurian Brandy the Doctor had received last Loop. It was then that the Doctor decided to ask something that had been niggling at him.

"Question: Is there a reason only my Companions from my first regeneration cycle are beginning to Loop?" he asked, taking a swig from his Brandy.

Zurvan looked away at this. "..."

The Doctor got the gist of it from that. "Answer: You don't want to tell me, do you?"

Zurvan shook his head. "No, it's nothing like that. It's just that only the period of subjective time covered by your first regeneration cycle's completely stable. Your later incarnations aren't, while your current one is only just beginning to stabilize."

The Doctor took that in. "So, none of them can Loop yet?"

"No."

"Not even-?"

"Not even them."

"...Damn."

* * *

5.8 (wildrook)

"Yeah," Rory muttered, noticing the corpses go in his direction as he went Last Centurion on the Nazi Zombies. "DEFINITELY one of those days..."

Amy then cringed. "This is karma," was what she muttered. "We accidentally save Adolf Hitler, now we're up against Nazi Zombies."

The Doctor, however, was more focused on his blade. "One, it was 1938," he said. "I've seen bad things happen when a Paradox gets involved, but I feel the same way. Two, we were more focused on your runaway daughter and I was poisoned, so we had to keep Hitler in the cupboard. Finally, these zombies have Pinkeye for some strange reason...but really, we might need to focus on staying alive in order to figure out where these zombies are coming from."

"You sure we're not involved with the Dream Lord again?" Rory asked the Doctor.

"No, we've been through that scenario before, Rory, and I doubt he'd come up with something as ludicrous as an anal probe made by gray aliens that speak cow."

Amy then cringed. "And it's times like this I wish River were here," she muttered.

"You and me both," Rory replied.

On the upside, Rory had the rare privilege of punching Eric Cartman in the face when the guy tried to re-enact the Third Reich over "The Passion of The Christ." Too bad the Doctor and Amy had to deal with a crazed Mel Gibson at the time.

* * *

5.9 (OathToOblivion)

Kureshima Takatora had Awoken while asleep in bed. Now that he was awake in the physical sense, he was contemplating what to do this Loop. Well, first thing was first, they had to deal with Ryoma. After that, though, was the matter of convincing Sagara to call off Helheim's invasion. Sometimes, it was easy. Other times, not so much.

He had sent out a Ping earlier, but had only gotten one reply back so far. It probably wasn't their Anchor, Kazuraba Kouta, as he tended to forget to Ping. Anyway, as it wasn't from within the house, that meant Mitsuzane wasn't Awake. And in that case, then he needed to make sure his younger brother did not go through the hardships he did in baseline. Speaking of…

"Nii-san, I'm heading out," Mitsuzane said, on his way out.

Takatora nodded from where he was eating his breakfast and reviewing his paperwork. "Have a nice day, Mitsuzane. Oh, and have fun with the Beat Riders later," he nonchalantly said.

Mitsuzane paled at that. "You know?!" he squeaked out.

Takatora turned to him and arched an eyebrow. "Of course I know. I'm your brother. It's my job. As long as you don't do anything illegal, I'm fine with whatever you do. Now, I believe you had somewhere to go right now?" he pointed out.

Mitsuzane silently nodded and headed off. As soon as he had left, Takatora sighed. It was never easy trying to stop his brother from going off the deep end. But it was always worth it in the end, he reminded himself.

Now, the current timeframe was shortly after their adventure in the Sengoku World, and as such the Genesis Drivers had already been completed. As such, that meant that Ryoma could be dealt with without sacrificing firepower.

But first, paperwork. It wasn't going to do itself after all. So for most of the day, Takatora went through his paperwork, only breaking in the middle for lunch. It was now 5 PM, and he was about to start wrapping it up.

Suddenly, the ground started shaking. "An earthquake?!" Takatora exclaimed in shock. He leapt out of his chair in an attempt to find something solid to hold onto, but a piece of loose plaster fell from the ceiling onto his head, knocking him out.

* * *

Takatora groaned as he woke up from his impromptu nap. 'There's something to be said about how easily I got knocked out,' he decided. He rolled to his feet, wincing as the scar on his shoulder from the initial Sengoku Driver test acted up again. However, he pushed past it as he usually did, rising up.

It was dark. This was the first thing he noticed. Checking his watch, which escaped getting broken somehow, he saw that the time was 6 PM. Far too early for it to be dark. He brought out his phone to call someone, but it wasn't functioning, not even on Yggdrasil's own network. That was a bad sign. Well, he wasn't going to be taken by surprise this time. Ignoring his briefcase containing this Loop's iteration of his Driver, he removed his own personal Sengoku Driver from his Pocket, as well as his Melon Lockseed. "Henshin," he declared, simply holding the muskmelon-themed padlock in front of him, rather than sending it flying into the air like he usually did.

**MELON! **

He placed the Lockseed into his Driver's Drive Bay and closed it over the Lock On Arm. Then, he sliced it open with his Cutting Blade, not letting the Standby Tune play.

**LOCK ON!**

**SOIYA! **

And that was all his belt said. Takatora blinked, and looked above him. Sure enough, no Crack, and no Melon Arms armor. "What?" he questioned in disbelief. However, after a very long 30 seconds, a Crack finally unzipped itself over his head, releasing his armor. Takatora sighed at this, but was still wondering what had taken so long for it to appear, even as it landed on his head and unfolded, the activation call playing.

**MELON ARMS! TENKA GOMEN!**

**(MELON ARMS! AUTHORIZED BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE!) **

The armor finished folding, revealing his Rider Form, Armored Rider Zangetsu! ...Or at least, that's what their backups in the Hub called him. Takatora had never named his Rider Form the first time around. What was the point? But...he honestly felt a bit of an attachment to it. So, at least in private, he referred to himself as Zangetsu in Rider Form.

But that was a tangent. He needed to find out what was going on. First an earthquake, now it's dark? That didn't bode well at all. Zangetsu rushed for the front door, only to find it jarred shut by debris. "Tch!" he let out. Sure, he could probably get out regardless, but it would cause horrible damage to the structure of the house. 'No, buildings can be rebuilt. Lives can't,' he reminded himself. Was this the onset of not really caring about non-Loopers, the kind of thing Kumon Kaito hated? Lack of compassion?

No. Kureshima Takatora had made many mistakes, but he would never give up compassion no matter how long he lived. He sliced his Cutting Blade down twice.

**SOIYA! MELON AU LAIT! **

He charged energy into his Musou Saber, then lashed it out. "Hah!" he yelled, destroying the debris and the doorframe in one fell swoop. 'I think I'll dock the repairs out of Ryoma's pay,' he thought to himself. It was petty, but it made him feel better. Plus, it's not as though Sengoku Ryoma really used it for anything.

Rushing out of the door, he noticed the sky. "What-?!" he said in shock. For the sky was filled with strange planets and the stars looked nothing like they were supposed to. "Could it be that the entire planet was moved?" he questioned. Right, that settled it. This was either a very extreme Variant, or a Fused Loop.

However, the thought that immediately went through Zangetsu's mind was, 'Mitsuzane!' Concerned for his brother, the white Armored Rider decided to find him. 'If it's 6, then he's probably with Team Gaim,' he decided. He pulled out a Sakura Hurricane from his Pocket and drove off towards Team Gaim's hangout.

* * *

The streets were oddly deserted as Zangetsu drove towards Team Gaim's hangout on his bike. 'Something's not right,' he decided as he drove over the bridge. 'With all that's happened, there should be people wondering what's going on.' What had he missed while he was out cold? He was about to find out.

A laser of some kind impacted the ground in front of him, flinging him off the Sakura Hurricane. "Gah!" he yelled as he tumbled to the floor. 'What was that?!' he thought in a daze. Lights impacted the ground, and he soon got his answer. Flying in the sky were three beings that looked a lot like pepperpots. But Zangetsu recognized them from that book Kouta had given him. "Daleks?!" he yelled in disbelief.

"HU-MAN SCUM DE-TEC-TED! TA-YA-SU! TA-YA-SU!" They were indeed Daleks, and were flying down to attack Zangetsu. They fired their lasers at him. Zangetsu blocked with the Melon Defender, but was pushed back across the road.

Takatora gritted his teeth behind his helmet. He knew this would be difficult. He might have been able to take on one at a time, but three was beyond even him in his Sengoku Driver form. He would have to switch to his Genesis Driver to easily deal with them, but it would take much too long. An idea then hit him. There was one way. He had to be quick though. The Melon Defender was starting to melt from the strain of the Daleks' attacks.

Removing his right hand from bracing the Defender, he drew his Musou Saber and set it to Gun Mode, shooting at the Daleks. He was too far away to accurately hit the eyestalks, but it was enough to get them to stop shooting. Then, he did something that would normally be stupid.

He jumped off the bridge, falling directly into the water below. The Daleks were horribly confused by his actions, and flew overhead where he had dived in.

"THE HUMAN HAS JUMPED IN-TO THE RI-VER. EX-PLAIN!"

"HIS FEAR MUST HAVE BEEN TOO MUCH. HE FEARED THE DA-LEKS!"

"NEGATIVE: LIFE SIGNS ARE STILL STABLE! CONCLUSION: HUMAN IS ALIVE!"

"ALERT! POWER SPIKE DETECTED!"

Suddenly, a white figure launched out of the water, slicing through one of the Daleks' eyestalks. As that one, flew erratically until it crashed on the ground, the other two turned. There, they saw Zangetsu, in white armor themed after Kamen Rider Fourze. His left hand held his Musou Saber, while Fourze's Rocket Module was active over his right. His Driver played the activation as they finished turning.

**FOURZE ARMS! SEISHUN SWITCH ON!**

**(FOURZE ARMS! SWITCH ON YOUR YOUTH!) **

'That was close,' he thought to himself. He didn't think he'd be able to get the Lockseed off in time, what with the delay. Luckily, the Daleks were too confused, so he had gotten enough time to do so. "Now, for you two!" he declared, zooming at the Daleks.

The Daleks immediately opened fire as soon as Zangetsu zoomed forward. He dodged to the best of his ability around the blasts, swiping at them with the Musou Saber as he passed. However, his efforts were curtailed when as he was coming around for another pass, he got blasted directly in the back.

"Gah!" he yelled, falling to the ground. While the armor protected him from getting hurt, it was still very powerful. He crashed onto the ground, the Rocket Module disappearing. The Daleks descended to attempt to attack him. Thinking fast, he unlocked the Fourze Lockseed from his Driver and slammed it into the Saber's Drive Launch.

**LOCK ON!**

**Ichi! Juu! Hyaku! FOURZE CHARGE!**

**(1! 10! 100! FOURZE CHARGE!) **

Unbidden, the personality imprint of Kisaragi Gentarou within the Fourze Lockseed took over for a split second as he initiated the attack. "Rider Chō Ginga Finish (Rider Super Galactic Finish)!" he declared, shooting off the Cosmic Energy-charged sword beam at the Daleks. It bisected one of the Daleks clean through the center, destroying it in a blaze of glory. The surviving Dalek rushed down at him, but even then, it knew it was likely that it would die.

"RE-IN-FORCE-MENTS RE-QUEST-ED!" it announced, attempting to divebomb Zangetsu. Zangetsu replied in the following way.

**SOIYA! LIMIT BREAK! **

Executing Fourze's Rider Rocket Drill Kick, Zangetsu propelled the yellow Drill Module on his left foot through the Dalek thanks to the exhaust of the orange Rocket Module that reappeared on his right arm. Panting in exhaustion, he registered what the Dalek had said. Knowing it had gotten the signal off, he immediately pulled another Rider Lockseed from his Pocket.

**KABUTO! **

He replaced the Fourze Lockseed with the now-identified Kabuto Lockseed, putting the white Lockseed away into his Pocket. He then Locked it On and sliced the Cutting Blade down again.

**LOCK ON! **

**SOIYA! **

While he waited for the new armor to appear, his Fourze Arms armor disappeared. 'I don't believe this. Daleks, here? Does that mean this is a Read-Only Loop then? Then again, Kouta-san has mentioned rumors that it was taken off of that status. Ludicrous, considering how much time travel that branch has. Even Den-O had problems getting online, and it was the first of the Rider Loops to go active!'

'On the other hand, that is a bad habit of mine. Not believing things I believe to be impossible. I'm going to have to work on that,' he decided as a Crack finally opened, releasing a giant version of Kamen Rider Kabuto in Rider Form's head. It landed on Zangetsu's head and unfolded into armor resembling Kabuto's Rider Form, complete with the horn. The activation call also finally played from the Driver.

**KABUTO ARMS! TEN NO MICHI MY WAY!**

**(KABUTO ARMS! THE PATH OF HEAVEN, MY WAY!) **

Zangetsu knew when to cut his losses. He did not want to be in the area when the Daleks' reinforcements arrived. 'I've still got to make sure Mitsuzane is alright,' he decided. With that thought in mind, he pressed the Cutting Blade down twice.

**SOIYA! CLOCK UP! **

Zangetsu proceeded to zoom off at the high speeds of Clock Up towards Team Gaim's hangout.

* * *

5.10 (crossoverpairinglover)

"THE UNI-VERSE BE-LONGS TO THE DA-LEKS! WE ARE THE SUPER-IOR LIVING LIFE-FORMS! WE WILL NOT BE DEF-EATED BY IN-FERIOR UN-LIVING LIFE-FORMS!"

The Doctor, currently sporting his most awesome bowtie that no one could hope to ever mimic and look as good as he did, poked his head out of the TARDIS to see a sight both familiar and unfamiliar.

What was familiar were the Daleks blasting at things.

What wasn't was what the Daleks were blasting at: endless hordes of the undead in a forest with a lot of chain-link fences.

Daleks...the undead horde...

The Doctor just closed the door to the TARDIS, not wanting to deal with either.

Perhaps 15th century Bhutan instead. Had to be better than this, or at least have far fewer of the Walking Dead.

* * *

"YOU DARE ATTEMPT TO BITE A DA-LEK?! FOO-LISH CORPSE! DA-LEK ARMOR IS SUPER-IOR TO YOUR PRIM-ITIVE JAW MUSCLES! DA-LEKS WILL NOW INI-TIATE PEST CON-TROL!"

A few Loops later, now in the form that seemed to unnerve Harry Potter a lot (the 10th Doctor), the Doctor poked his head out of the TARDIS again to see another battle between human zombies and Daleks. Said zombies were finding out that they could not eat through Dalek armor.

This time, it appeared to be Yonkers, New York

"..." From the corner of his eye, the Doctor noticed Donna poke her head out, curious about what was going on.

He covertly pushed her back inside along with himself. "Nothing to see here, nothing at all. It would be far better if we go somewhere else. Ever wanted to visit Peru at the height of early Inca development?"

* * *

"HUNGER GOSPEL?! YOU DARE SUGGEST THAT YOU WILL CON-QUER THE MULTI-VERSE?! ONLY THE DA-LEKS ARE WORTHY OF CON-QUERING THE MULTI-VERSE! PRE-PARE TO BE EXTER-MINATED!"

The Doctor, quite a few loops later and now looking like how he did when he met Rose, just stared in horror as War Daleks were engaged in a massive fight over the skies of what he believed to be the world of Hala (home of the Kree race) with what appeared to be zombie versions of the Avengers and Fantastic Four."I'm almost not sure who to root for here," the Doctor, who occasionally was called Malekith in this Loop, muttered to himself.

(wildrook)

"You and me both," added the man with a chainsaw for a hand.

* * *

5.11 (Gamerex27)

The Doctor Awoke, and instantly saw that something was wrong. He was inside what looked like a metal tube, with various levers and ports sticking into it. Levers for more than two hands. And there was a single porthole, looking out into a blue-tinted world.

So, it had finally happened. The Doctor had Looped in as his worst enemy: a Dalek.

He debated just taking one of his cyanide pills to get out of this, but since that had led to a truly awful Loop last time he had done that, he decided not to. He quickly put up the various mental barriers and blocks he had picked up in both his Baseline and in other Loops, to block out the Dalek conditioning that was no doubt trying to infest his mind.

But as he did this, he happened to stumble upon his Loop Memories.

"EH?"

To be exact, they were almost identical to the memories of his first incarnation, up to the point where he stole his TARDIS and left to hide the Hand of Omega. Except for one, crucial detail.

"OH, DEAR."

* * *

..."DOC-TOR, WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THIS LOOP? EXPLAIN! EXPLAIN!"

The Anchor, known in this bizarre variant as Doc Tor, adjusted his scarf with a wave of his plunger and took his eyestalk off the TARDIS console. "AH, YES. DID I E-VER TELL YOU HOW THE TIME LORDS GE-NE-TIC-ALLY SEED-ED THE UN-I-VERSE TO EN-SURE THAT AL-MOST ALL SEN-TIENT LIFE WOULD RE-SEM-BLE THEM?"

Sarah Jane Smith wracked her memory, trying to distract herself from looking down at herself (Daleks were not attractive creatures by any sense of the word). "MAY-BE ONCE?"

"WELL," the Fourth Doc Tor said, "HERE, THE TIME LORDS AND DA-LEKS HAVE SWITCHED PLA-CES. THE DA-LEKS SEED-ED THE COS-MOS WITH THEIR GE-NE-TIC MA-TER-IAL."

"SO, THAT'S WHY E-VE-RY AL-IEN WE'VE SEEN LOOKS LIKE..." Sara Jane trailed off. "BUT HOW CAN ANY-THING E-VOLVE TO MAKE THESE SUITS! IT MAKES NO SENSE!"

"I DON'T CLAIM TO UNDER-STAND THIS ANY BETTER THAN YOU DO," the Doctor simply said. "AT LEAST THERE ISN'T ANY MEN-TAL CON-DIT-IONING THIS TIME."

His claw hand, replacing where the gunstick would be on military-model Dalek suits, extended, retrieving a small, white paper bag from his pocket. "WOULD YOU LIKE A JE-LLY BA-BY?"

Sarah Jane just stared blankly at him. "DOC-TOR, YOU REA-LIZE THAT WE CAN'T EAT THOSE, RIGHT? DA-LEKS HAVE NO TEETH."

"WELL, THAT'S A SHAME," the Time Lord (or Dalek Lord this time) commented, stuffing the bag of candies back into his Pocket. "IS THERE ANY-THING YOU WANT TO SEE THIS LOOP? THE DALEK STA-TUE OF LI-BER-TY? DA VIN-CI'S DA-LEK LI-SA? THE RIN-GS OF SKA-RO-TEN?"

"HOW A-BOUT A PUB?" his companion and fellow Looper asked. "I NEED A DRINK. BADLY."

(fractalman)

"THERE IS ONE MIN-OR PRO-BLEM. HOW DO YOU EX-PECT TO DRINK?"

* * *

5.1: Similar fields of expertise. You'd be surprised how many visiting Loopers find themselves on Ice World.

5.2: Doctor Who: the Last Airbender.

5.3: Donna can still access her Doctor-Donna memories. And, like her grandfather, she figured the TARDIS should be neater.

5.4: DA-LEKS ARE THE SU-PER-IOR NAN-NY!

5.5: It doesn't have to be a Snowman, but the Great Intelligence might be disappointed if it isn't.

5.6: It's the Strangest staring match of all Time.

5.7: An in-universe explanation for why we're not writing what we don't know.

5.8: Minor Fused Loop with South Park (which is Safe Mode, BTW).

5.9: Kamen Riders versus the Daleks.

5.10: Daleks vs. Zombies. Keep an eye out for Crazy Dave (Not really).

5.11: At least it's not as bad as the time he was Davros and he had to fight himself.


End file.
